


Oblivion

by x_Varda_x



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2011-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 42,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_Varda_x/pseuds/x_Varda_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no Wormhole Drive and no last minute save. The gate is dialled too late and the cull has already begun. What if Earth had been culled by the Wraith and humanity brought to its knees? Rodney vows to fix everything, because a universe without Wraith would be a better place, right?  Temporary major character deaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Oblivion by Varda](https://archiveofourown.org/works/251430) by [therisingmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/therisingmoon/pseuds/therisingmoon). 
  * Inspired by [Oblivion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/251467) by [Valika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valika/pseuds/Valika). 



> Special thanks to my wonderful betas **Lemon Icees, Leia and Rinks!** Pounce-tackle-hugs to the members of Stargateland's **Team Atlantis** for all the poking and prodding after my first story broke and I very nearly gave up at the prospect of having to restart! And also a huge thank you to my artists for the fantastic work they produced!

[](http://archiveofourown.org/works/251430)| [](http://archiveofourown.org/works/251467)  
---|---  
Art by [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/themoonisrising/profile)[**themoonisrising**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/themoonisrising/)|  Video by [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Valika/profile)[**Valika**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Valika/)  
  
 _Time means nothing in the void. An hour stretches forward into forever and a few seconds could be an eternity. But when those seconds really mattered, they were gone too quickly._ ~Rodney McKay, November 13th 2013

xxx

The solitary F302 glinted in the sunlight as it slowly spun without power in orbit above Earth. It was dwarfed by the thickly armoured hull of the Wraith Super Hive that hung menacingly in space above the colourful orb below.

John Sheppard, once cocky flyboy, now the only hope of mankind after the destruction of the Earth Control Chair, was in the cockpit of the small ship, waiting for the best moment to fire up the engines and make his run at the vast looming death in front of him. His relative position to it got closer and closer as it flew towards its prey and then it stopped.

John grimaced. "Alright. I'd say it's time to get moving."

He fired up the engines and zipped the small fighter spaceship towards the Hive, ignoring all stealth now in favour of speed. Getting taken out before he made it inside the Hive did not bear thinking about, so he focused his mind on the job ahead and shut out all other thoughts.

He took aim at the sealed bay he was heading for with his weapon controls - the weakest part of the ship and his only way in. He flipped off the safety cover over the button on the joystick with practised ease, waited for the beep to confirm his target was locked, then squeezed the missile trigger. He watched in determined satisfaction as the missile flew out ahead of him silently in the vacuum and slammed into the doors – right on target. The resulting explosion was dampened by the lack of oxygen, but it was spectacularly effective nonetheless. The F302 sped on through the fireball and entered the blasted open bay.

John gripped the controls of the ship tightly, a steely expression on his face as he flew it as deeply into the Hive as he could. He had one nuke onboard. He only hoped it would be enough or it would all be over, not only for him and Earth, but probably all the humans of the Milky Way Galaxy.

For five long years he had dreaded this moment, they all had, John and his friends who were thousands of light years away from this moment. They had come close before once, but had prevented the Wraith from even leaving the Pegasus Galaxy, let alone making it all the way to Earth.

John knew then as he dodged around the pillars holding the bay apart, that he was the only one who could save mankind from the Wraith. Only this time, there would be no Daedalus to swoop in at the last moment and beam him from the jaws of death. That the Wraith had made it this far told him that the Daedalus had been disabled, possibly worse… All that he had was a small bomb that held a big bang and an even smaller trigger button.

His palms became sweaty and his heart beat sped up, but there was no flight possible, only the way onwards to his fate. He spotted a good landing place on a sloping wall at the edge of the bay where the small ship could be concealed long enough for him to blow the ship back to hell. He angled his tiny fighter up and steeled his resolve, then he checked his handgun was loaded and ready just in case and cut the engines.

xxx

Thousands of light years away at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, Rodney sat in the control room on Atlantis. The people all around him were working frantically and Rodney felt the tension thrumming through him as acutely as everyone else. The first waves of panic built in his chest, threatening to overwhelm him, but he fought them down as he busied himself on his computer, recalibrating the gate to their new location.

Radek sat helping Rodney nearby and in unison they worked at twice the speed.

"Done," Rodney announced.

"Dial Earth," Woolsey said.

Rodney stood up and went to the DHD, hammering the keys. The symbols on the gate lit as he touched the buttons in front of him, but then the lights winked out and both gate and DHD shut down with a disappointed groan.

The tension ratcheted up a notch and Rodney's hands began to shake. He glanced over at Radek and saw that his fellow scientist's face was pale, his expression grim.

"Try it again," Woolsey said unnecessarily.

Rodney had already begun, but no wormhole formed. Silence fell on the control room as heads looked up and fingers on keyboards stilled.

"You don't think they've already taken over the SGC?" Chuck asked in a small voice from where he had been shunted to the back of the Control Room by Rodney and Radek.

"Impossible," Rodney said. Then realisation dawned on him and he collapsed back down into his chair with wide, unseeing eyes. His mouth parted slightly and his face went a paler shade of ashen white.

Radek asked, "What's wrong?"

"They haven't made it to the SGC… They can't have… it's buried deeply underground and shielded so that they wouldn't ever find it on their scanners." He swallowed and suddenly became very calm. "They've begun their cull. As they can't get to the Earth gate, the Hive must have a Stargate onboard so that they could dial out and prevent anyone on Earth from escaping."

Woolsey looked confused for a moment, then was galvanised into action. "Keep dialling it, so that we can get through the moment their gate shuts down. We _have_ to break through."

Radek nodded solemnly. "I'll create a programme to do so."

Woolsey turned to Rodney. "Dr. McKay, we need that hyperdrive working as quickly as you can."

Rodney shook his head. "I don't know what's wrong with it."

Woolsey softened his voice. "Well, find out. I don't need to remind you that the fate of Earth is in your hands now."

Rodney swallowed and his heart sank. Usually it was only Atlantis he had to worry about, but this time billions of people were now relying on him to pull a miracle out of thin air. He whimpered and blinked through watery eyes as his whole body began to shake. Then he quickly got a hold on his nerves, scrubbed a trembling hand over his face and pulled his computer nearer to start running diagnostics on the faulty hyperdrive. Every moment he wasted could be costing hundreds, if not thousands of lives on Earth.

He radioed the science labs and got them working on it too. Every breath he took could mean that someone on Earth had just breathed their last at the hands of the Wraith and that thought shook him to the core.

xxx

John landed the F302 and unfastened his face mask. He powered down the engines and activated the radio. "Stargate Command, this is Sheppard. Come in."

Sam answered, "Sheppard, where are you?"

He gritted his teeth as he flicked several switches - those to lock the nuke in place so that it did not launch from his ship. His twitching fingers hovered over the nuke arming controls. "I made it inside. Look, I don't have much time before this place is swarming with Wraith, so I'm arming the nuke."

"John ..."

Nothing could stop him, such was his resolve. Sam knew that as well as he did. He wondered if it would hurt and what being dead was going to be like. Was there an afterlife? Or was there just black nothingness? He had never been a religious man, preferring the here and now and tangible way the controls of flying machines felt in his hands or the gentle caress of the Puddle Jumper's interface with him. What he could see and do and fly was his existence, he did not want anything else. "Just do me a favour. When Atlantis shows up, tell them I said goodbye."

He did not want Sam or anyone to try and talk him out of this, so he deactivated the radio and closed his eyes. This was it and he hesitated for a moment. He did not really want to die – even to save the world, but he knew he had to. He was the last defence mankind had against the unstoppable onslaught of the Wraith. He was just about to flick the arm switch up when a large bolt of blue flew towards his ship and hit it, violently jolting him in his seat. He reached for the switch again and flipped it, but nothing happened.

"Aw, crap."

The shot had fried all the circuits and he could no longer detonate the nuke. Wraith drones swarmed around him, aiming their stunners at him. He tried again, but nothing happened, so he grabbed his sidearm and readied himself for a fight to the death with a crowd of annoyed Wraith.

They smashed open the canopy and he nailed a couple of them before he was shot multiple times in the chest with stun blasts. His body tensed up as his muscles went into spasm from the shots, then he sunk down limply into his seat.

xxx

Bolts of blue flew from the Wraith Super Hive and spread out as they entered the upper atmosphere of the planet below it. They were beautiful, like bright stars falling from the sky onto the land. In their wake, fire followed, as one by one Earth's power grids were damaged and the human population was reduced to panic and confusion. These were no mere fireworks that seemed to dance idly down from the heavens. They were death and destruction.

Further balls of Wraith lightning landed on missile silos and sunk warships with ease. There were no shields to protect any of the Earthbound installations and nothing anyone could do but look on as all the defences against the oncoming armada were destroyed and the world began to burn.

Hundreds of darts screamed from the Hive along with one larger scout ship with several Wraith onboard. While the darts headed down to the nearest land mass to begin the cull, the scout ship flew further and dropped its spores on several unsuspecting towns that still had power, infecting those who lived there with what was needed.

Earth was consumed by panic and chaos as the wildfires spread, darts picked up those who ran out in the open without discrimination or mercy, men, women and children alike, and the end began.

xxx

Rodney sat at his computer and worked, his fingers were barely able to keep up with his brain as thoughts chased each other around. It had been over an hour since the programme Radek had created was activated and people were getting nervous.

Woolsey asked what everyone had been thinking, "It's been over 38 minutes now, why won't the gate connect?"

Radek opened his mouth to speak, but Rodney got there first, speaking and typing and thinking at the same time. "Although we can only hypothesise about what's happening this far out, the wormhole at their end could be kept open by a huge power source." He sighed and paused typing to blink a few times and flex his cramping fingers, then carried on. "Or they've put something partially into the wormhole in order to activate the safety protocols."

He was freaked out and scared – they all were, but that was no reason to lose his head completely. There was still time to stop the Wraith before they did too much damage. That they could not dial meant that the Wraith Hive was still operational, but they had no way to say for certain exactly what was going on until they got there.

"How's the hyperdrive, Dr. McKay?" Woolsey asked.

"Broken."

"I know that. Can you fix it?"

"Power conduits blew out after having been out of use and submerged for ten thousand years. Ancient technology is far superior to ours, but despite wishful thinking, it doesn't last forever. It therefore doesn't take kindly to being forced to run at maximum power for an extended period of time. There could be rusty or clogged components, but eventually the safety protocols could no longer compensate for all the damage."

"How long will it take to have us back in hyperspace?"

"Longer if you keep asking questions."

Woolsey chewed on his lower lip and Radek glanced at Rodney then at the Lantean leader. Radek said, "It may take several hours. We are co-ordinating teams to the most badly damaged and vital conduits, but it will take time."

Woolsey nodded his thanks and then went back to hovering and waiting with all the others. He tapped his radio, "Woolsey to Lorne. I want everyone ready to fight and the Puddle Jumpers set to go the moment we reach Earth orbit."

He nodded as he listened. "Good. I'll let you know when we're within fifteen minutes of arrival."

Rodney felt sweat forming on his forehead. His fingers and wrists were painful as he abused them on the laptop keys and his tense shoulders ached, but he kept going. If they survived this, he was going to need some good drugs and a very hot bath. But for the first time in his life he had a niggling doubt in his mind as to whether any of them would even be alive in 24 hours.

xxx

John opened his eyes groggily and tried to move without success. He could hardly feel any part of himself. The nerves that were still reporting in to his brain alternated between tingling and the sensation of liquid fire under his skin. He tensed up and released a heavy breath to no avail. He glanced around at the purple walls surrounding him, then down at himself and found that he was hanging immobilised by many tendrils of sinew and skin in a Wraith cocoon. For a moment he thought that it was a nightmare and willed himself to wake up, but the stunned confusion fled away and left him exactly where he was, alone and trapped in a Wraith Hive with no hope of rescue.

There was a loud bang directly in front of him and he looked up as orange flame spread out from the wall ahead. He turned his face away, but there was no heat and no draught from the explosion. He frowned and glanced at the wall again. It was a screen, or what passed as a screen, it being skin stretched taut over a large circular frame. It was projecting explosions as Wraith darts and bolts of energy flew out from where the camera was situated in space somewhere – probably attached to the considerable bulk of the Hive hull itself.

A happy sounding voice said, "For your transgressions, _human,_ you shall be allowed to witness the end of your planet."

John turned his head as best he could, but there was something slimy poking in his ear and he grimaced. He managed to look far enough that he saw there was a grinning Wraith standing watching him. "Go to hell!" John spat.

The Wraith's grin broadened. "I have no intention of doing so, but you are in your own personal hell. Had you pressed that trigger just a moment sooner, you would not have to watch the demise of your precious homeworld."

John gritted his teeth as more darts flew from the Hive down to the surface and several returned.

A little drool dribbled from the mouth of the Wraith as he stood there, making John grimace. John secretly named the Wraith Bob.

Bob smiled, all sharp teeth and snarling. "I am greatly looking forward to feasting on the first of those to be culled from the surface. I especially like the younger ones and the females that shriek so when I taste them." The Wraith flexed its feeding hand in anticipation and closed its eyes in bliss and drew in a breath which is released with a contented sigh. "I can almost hear them already."

"Bastard!" John tugged and wrenched at the tendrils holding him in place, but only succeeded in making his shoulders hurt. He kept going beyond the pain, not caring if he tore himself to pieces.

The Wraith came over and glared at him. He placed a hand on his chest through the webbing securing him and grinned again, saliva leaking from the corners of its mouth. He pushed hard against John's chest, shoving him back in the cocoon so that he could hardly move or breathe.

"Do it!" John shouted as he stilled.

The Wraith pressed down hard and John felt the unpleasant bite as its hand cut his chest, but the Wraith let go with a sigh and lowered its hand. "Perhaps not. I am sure I can wait a few more minutes for the first ones to arrive. For five long years we have waited for this moment. We are all hungry, but today shall mark the beginning of the feast, the time of plenty and none of us will ever feel hunger again."

John screamed as he pulled and struggled, but the tendrils had no give in them and he was powerless. He tried not to be sick as he watched the activity on the screen – he had nowhere else to look other than to close his eyes.


	2. How It Ends

It took many space walks and much cursing on Rodney's part to get the city hyperspace worthy again. It was a whole week before they were in a position to run the hyperdrive. Atlantis fled the silent, empty part of space where it had ended up and entered hyperspace, finally ready to join the fight for Earth. If it was still going on after so much time.

The programme to dial the Earth Stargate had been constantly running the whole week and with every hour that passed, the Lantean's hearts sank. Depending on whether the control chair plan had been successful, not likely based on their continuing inability to form a wormhole to Earth, it was going to be a last stand as the city was the most powerful asset they had – even more so than the control chair on Earth. The Asgard beams were even more powerful than the finite drone weapons currently stored in the city, so their hopes were not high, but they had to try something. Ronon and Teyla joined the rest of the senior command staff in the Control Room so that they could find out what the city would be up against when it left hyperspace.

"Fifteen minutes," Rodney told Woolsey, then went back to frantically typing on his computer to make sure nothing exploded again and permanently put them out of commission in a useless part of the Milky Way light years away from anything.

"Shields to maximum," Woolsey commanded.

Rodney sighed. "This isn't Star Trek… either the shields are on or they're off."

"They shrink," Radek said.

"Not in hyperspace!" Rodney snapped.

"I know, but maximum has several different meanings in the context of the Lantean shielding."

Rodney frowned as he chased a power surge around the main grid. He isolated it as levels began to rise to explosive status. "Section Four, East Pier."

"Got it," Radek said. "Purging and diverting."

"Reinitialising," Rodney gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath. He released a large sigh. "It worked, engines stabilised. Tenth time today." He activated the comm. "Keep it up, Carson, we're nearly there."

A strained voice answered them, "Aye, well I'm about ready to explode myself!"

Woolsey hit his radio and spoke to Lorne, "We are approaching Earth. Have your teams ready."

An all too short few minutes later and Atlantis left hyperspace and entered the Solar System for the first time in many millennia. The towers and piers of the city gave it a strange shape for a spaceship – it was neither aerodynamic nor aesthetically pleasing as it flew through space, but it was unhindered in the vacuum of space and glided effortlessly on its final approach to Earth.

Rodney transferred the main sensor readouts onto the large screen in the Control Room. The circle in the middle showed Earth and surrounding it were several large red lights.

"Are you all seeing this?" Rodney asked.

"How is that possible?" Radek said in a small voice.

Rodney typed furiously. "I ran a quick diagnostic and the sensors are functioning correctly." He swallowed and looked at the screen as the people in the control room stared at it with rapidly growing apprehension, even more so than they had had moments before they had come to discover their fate.

Rodney was the first to speak, "I count seven Wraith Hives, including the Super Hive."

"Where did they come from?" Woolsey asked.

"They must have been grown on the surface like what nearly happened to Jennifer," Rodney said, looking frightened. "There is a lot of power for them to sap if they directly plug into the grid. We've never been able to study how quickly a Hive can be grown when it's linked to a large power source – Jennifer's…" he gulped, "Tendrils never reached the ZedPM."

"How are we supposed to destroy _seven_ Hives?" A scientist at the back of the room shouted in panic.

"We can't win this," Radek said.

"But it's _Earth…"_ Rodney said breathlessly.

Woolsey opened the comm to Carson flying the city from where he sat in the command chair many levels below. "Head for the Super Hive."

"Already on the way. What about the others?"

"We'll get to them later."

Rodney hit a few keys and said. "Need I remind you that we don't have an infinite supply of drones?"

"I know."

Rodney spoke to Carson, "Aim for the dart bays. They should be the weakest part and prone to secondary and internal explosions." Rodney glanced around wistfully at all the pale faces looking to him for hope and guidance, not that Rodney had ever been one for optimism, he was not going to give up without a fight. He looked away and said, "I wish we'd had a chance to install Asgard beams."

Radek pursed his lips. "We already have ships with Asgard beams, but we never thought anything would be able to match and disable them." He looked down sadly. "It is too late now."

Atlantis flew towards its target like a giant snow globe. Its shield protected the spires and inhabitants from the harsh vacuum of space all around. Four of the freshly grown Wraith Hives moved to intercept the new threat and flew in front of the Super Hive.

"Ignore them and head straight for the Super Hive," Rodney said.

Atlantis manoeuvred around the large Hive ships with relative ease, Carson's reluctance to fly the city due to his weaker gene was only so many words as he mentally guided the city towards the enemy with barely a hitch in his control. Blue bolts of energy flew out and struck the shield as it passed, but it was still powered by two ZPMs – the third one having been depleted to fly Atlantis to the Milky Way at top speed, so it held.

Launchers opened all around Atlantis and bright yellow drones flew out towards the Super Hive. There were only a few darts in space to intercept them – the rest where flying close to the ground far down through the atmosphere of Earth, sucking up people with their culling beams. The Wraith had become complacent in the strength of their ZPM powered Super Hive, thinking that nothing could stop them so they would not need a defensive force.

"The bay doors!" Rodney shouted as drones slammed into the hull of the Super Hive.

"Minimal effect," Radek said.

"I cannae find any bays!" an irate Scottish voice said over the comm.

"Scanning," Rodney said as he pulled up his chair and thumped down into it.

The other Hive ships were moving in to surround Atlantis and there was no let up in the constant barrage of energy weapons' fire. The shields held, but they wouldn't stay up indefinitely.

"No," Rodney said. "The bays, wherever they were, are no longer showing up on any scans – the hull must have grown around them or otherwise sealed them to protect the ship's only weakness."

"So, now what do I do?!" Carson asked.

"The drones will run out unless we are careful to choose our targets," Radek said.

"Thinking," Rodney snapped as he closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into his forehead. He opened his eyes and glared intensely at his computer screen. "Aim everything we have at these co-ordinates."

Radek nodded his approval. "The concentrated fire should break through the strong hull. We would only need to breach it in one place to get some of them inside to destroy the ship from the inside out."

"Firing now," Carson said.

More drones flew out and wove in and around the few darts that were brave enough to head them off. There were several explosions, but most of the drones made it through. They slammed into the same point on the hull one after another and the ship was covered with orange flame as the explosions rolled over it.

There was a collective intake of breath as the flames dissipated and revealed…

"Did they damage it at all?" Rodney asked in a high voice as the intact Wraith Super Hive turned towards them so that its secondary weapons port could join the volley ongoing from the primary.

"Minimal damage," Radek said with a sigh. "Whatever we did barely scratched the surface. We can't win this."

"Now what?" Carson asked. "I've only got fifty drones left and then the best we'll be able to do is pull faces at them and hope they go away."

Woolsey said, "Ramming speed!"

The bottom fell out of Rodney's walnut-sized stomach. He folded his arms and frowned. "No."

Woolsey glared at him and said, "Why not?! You said so yourself that the drone weapons are useless and we're defenceless!"

Radek piped up. "I agree with Rodney. The Hive's outer hull is so thick, it's unlikely we would destroy it even if we crash into it and destroy the city in the process."

"We have to try something," Woolsey said.

"I know, but this isn't the answer," Rodney said in a loud voice. "What happens to the other six Hives when we're gone? They'll continue the cull."

"The Puddle Jumpers have cloaks and drones, could they fly inside the Hive and destroy it from the inside?" Woolsey suggested.

"The Hive can see through the Jumper cloak, but I'm all out of ideas other than of the fleeing and hiding kind."

"Major Lorne, have you been listening?"

"Yes."

"Then you know what you have to do. Take the Jumpers out and get into that Hive in any way you can."

Atlantis moved closer to the Super Hive, despite the continued barrage from all sides. The bolts pooled in orange against the shield, but none broke through. Once it was as close at it could get without touching the colossal Wraith ship, fifteen Puddle Jumpers flew out from the upper bay – one for every gene carrying person on the base except for Rodney and Carson and John who was missing.

Carson covered the Puddle Jumpers with a few of the precious drones, intercepting the blue bolts that flew towards them. But five Jumpers were destroyed with single direct hits even with their shields raised, such was the power of the Hive's new weapons. They were not fighter craft, but the best Atlantis had to offer in the circumstances.

With each one that vanished in an almost unremarkably small orange flicker, Rodney's heart contracted and rose in his chest until he could hardly breathe.

The Puddle Jumpers fired drones point blank at the hull where there was a narrow seam at the point where the previous drones had impacted, but they had no effect.

"They can't get through even right up close like that," Rodney said as it felt as though his heart was about to stop entirely. "It's hopeless. Nothing we can do can get through."

"Get out of there!" Rodney said into the comm.

Only three Jumpers made it back safely within the confines of the Lantean shield. Major Lorne was not one of their number.

"We need to go on," Teyla said. "There is little we can do for your world as long as that Hive remains here and indestructible."

"It's useless destroying the city when we can still use it," Ronon agreed.

Teyla furrowed her brow at the hopeless faces all around her. "Many can still be saved."

"Billions…" Rodney said in a small voice.

"Hundreds, possibly thousands," Teyla said. "But it is better than none at all."

The remaining Puddle Jumpers cloaked and flew to the surface under the protection of Atlantis from the weapons fire and strong sensors of the Super Hive that could see through the cloaks. For days they brought as many as they could from the surface and into the city. They brought seeds and data, but mostly they brought people until the city was full to capacity and there was no room left for more.

So Atlantis entered hyperspace and fled to consider their next actions. The Wraith continued to feast and Earth was reduced to rubble and desolation as the last few survivors clung to life. The Wraith let those unhappy few live as they moved on to start culling the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy without any threat against their power at all.


	3. Twilight

_'The Wraith are like flies around a carcass – they multiply when there is an ample supply of life to take, and their population diminishes when stocks run low.'_ ~Ronon Dex.

 _Five Years Later…_

"One star. Two stars," Rodney said in a shaky voice as he pointed out into space. He frowned. "I wonder if John is one of these stars?"

He shook his head and picked up his notepad, scribbling some more equations with a grimace, his hands were stiff and numb and refused to obey his commands. He crossed out the mistakes angrily and glared up the sky with watery eyes. "Where did you go, John? Sam? What happened to everyone?" He blinked, cursing his stupid eyes for their betrayal. Rubbing a hand across his face and pushing his hair away from his eyes so that he could see, he realised that he was cold to the point of freezing. His lower lip and body trembled, not from the unshed tears, but in the first stages of hypothermia.

"There you are, Rodney!" a female voice called. "What are you doing out here in the cold?"

Rodney did not look at her as he clutched his prized notepad full of the proof of his genius tightly to his chest. "Working."

He could no longer avoid her when she crouched down in front of him on the balcony and grabbed his shoulders with her warm hands. She lowered her head, staring intensely into his face until he looked up.

"Jennifer?"

She smiled. "Hi." She took one of his hands in her own, prying it away from the notepad he held, but not daring to take that away from him.

Rodney flinched at the heat.

"You're freezing! You'll catch your death out here."

Rodney looked away and pulled his hand free. "Would it really matter?"

Jennifer frowned. "Of course it would! Besides, President Woolsey announced that we'll reach our new home tonight."

Rodney glanced out across the balcony and through the railings. Lights shone in the towers all around him, signs of life and habitation. It had never been any consolation to him that some had survived when so many countless millions had perished all because of him. It was worse knowing that so few remained when he could have done something about it. What exactly, he had yet to figure out, but he knew there had to have been a way.

Jennifer sat down next to him and pressed herself to his side. "General Caldwell is organising a party for when we land."

They sat in silence for a while until Rodney felt some warmth returning to the side that Jennifer was touching. She was going to get cold out here and he did not like that idea.

"There are so many stars," Rodney said.

"I know. They're beautiful."

"So many worlds and so many people…"

"Rodney…" Jennifer said slowly.

Rodney hiccupped. "All taken. All gone."

"We're still here and we'll keep going no matter what."

Rodney swallowed and as he looked out across the vast empty expanse of space before them, he said in a shaky voice, "Do you ever wish that things had turned out differently?"

"Every day."

"Do you wonder how things might have gone if we'd dialled the gate just a few seconds earlier or if the control chair had worked?"

She furrowed her brow at him, "Rodney, we've been through this already many times."

He sighed sadly. "I know, but I can't help thinking about it. Maybe there's something I could've done. Maybe if I'd fixed the hyperdrive faster? I'm sure somewhere there's another me in another reality who solved the problem faster and saved everyone. Saved Earth and saved John."

She moved her arm across his back and curled her fingers around his waist, drawing him in closely. "You did all you could and that's the best any of us can ask."

Rodney looked down across the city and out into space beyond the shield. He said quietly, "Sometimes I wish the Wraith had taken us all."

Jennifer frowned. "Well, they didn't. There are still lots of us left!"

Rodney's voice rose high in outrage, "A couple of thousand... from _billions!_ How can you call that lots?!" His anger did not last long as exhaustion and the cold were combining to make him sluggish.

"We have to keep on living, as we're all that's left." Jennifer's voice faltered at the end and Rodney looked at her to find her eyes brimming with tears. As he watched, the water flowed from her and ran down her cheeks. He felt the familiar tug of grief in his own heart, but still could not bring himself to mourn. There had to be something he could still do.

He glanced down at his much loved notepad and frowned. It had been five years almost to the day since they had left Earth. When they returned a month later with the repaired Daedalus limping with them ready for the ultimate fight to the death, the Wraith had culled their fill and moved on. The Apollo and Sun Tzu never made it back from the fight, presumed too badly damaged to be repaired and lost in the vacuum of space where they had engaged the Super Hive. The Lanteans had retrieved what they could of the data and cultural artefacts that had not been destroyed, but it seemed the Wraith had been angry and had burned much of the surface.

Rodney still remembered the screaming and horror of what had been left behind. There were a few people on the surface still, just enough so that Earth would now become as the planets in the Pegasus Galaxy had – a place to be regularly culled back to the Stone Age so that the people never presented a threat to the Wraith again.

For all the time since then, Atlantis had been drifting through the Milky Way without a home or a hope.

"Wake up, Rodney," Jennifer said.

He opened his eyes. "I wasn't sleeping."

He vaguely felt her hand in his and she tugged at him, but he could hardly move. "I think I'm nearly ready," Rodney said, giggling sleepily as the cold wrapped itself around his chest and squeezed violent shivers from him.

"Ready for what?"

"To tell you what I've been working on."

"Tell me over dinner. They're serving soup and bread tonight, made from the recent harvest on Delta Four."

Rodney perked up a little. Most of the food they had was grown on planets with space gates and no human populations. They used the Jumpers and made ploughs from Ancient components to till the earth and then planted what they could, returning in time for the harvest.

Ronon and Teyla each headed hunter teams which frequently went off Atlantis to gather the meat they needed.

With a few thousand mouths to feed, many often went hungry and it was a meagre existence, but it was survival and Rodney had stopped complaining after the first year... more or less.

"Soup? Great. Next you'll be telling me there's chocolate."

Jennifer furrowed her brow. "Sorry, Rodney. You know no-one got any cocoa seeds when we last saw Earth."

Rodney sighed and felt his mouth turn down in sadness. What he would not give for a nice big bar of chocolate. Hell, he would settle for a single piece to taste the sweetness again.

He allowed Jennifer's tugging to galvanise him into action and pulled himself upright. His backside had gone to sleep and his legs did not feel like they were there. She wrapped an arm across his back and pressed her other hand to his chest to support him.

"Careful," she said.

Rodney looked where she was glaring and saw that he was about to drop the notepad from his numb fingers. He drew it up against himself and nodded with gritted teeth as some feeling started to come back to his extremities through movement. How long had he been sitting there? It felt like days. He found that few things mattered when it was just him out on the balcony alone with the stars, but there was only minimal heating outside the doors to conserve power.

Jennifer steered him inside and he felt the instant rise in temperature. She was talking quickly, but Rodney only heard a few words - something about Ronon catching a large creature with two heads on a recent trip. Teyla had teased him mercilessly, but it had fed many people that evening.

There was a harsh cry ahead and a rush of unintelligible speech as children ran past them. Jennifer laughed as they ran and Rodney could not help the slight tug of his lips that happened too. It had taken him even longer to accept children roaming the halls than it had to accept the rationed food, because his anger had become self destructive by that point. Then he had realised there was nothing he could do about it, so why waste precious poorly fed energy to get angry?

Rodney stumbled and closed his eyes.

"Whoopsy," Jennifer said as he veered into the wall and just breathed for a moment. He was still cold and the movement was starting to hurt his legs and feet.

"Slowly," Jennifer said as she pulled him upright again.

"I need to find a more efficient way of getting your attention," Rodney said with a smirk.

"You always have my attention, but it's sometimes hard to find you. How many balconies are there on Atlantis?"

Rodney grimaced. "Not enough."

Jennifer lowered her voice in seriousness. "You know that we have hardly any supplies left and if you get sick…"

Rodney nodded. "I understand."

"So why do you keep doing it? You could die."

Rodney screwed his eyes tightly closed when his right forearm throbbed and his fingers tingled as the sensation returned. "It helps."

Jennifer poked a finger into his chest. "Well, don't."

They entered the packed Mess Hall and Rodney quaked in fear and curled his hand around the notepad, glaring at anyone who looked at him the wrong way. They were after his writings and they would never touch them.

"I'll be back in a minute. Stay here." Jennifer said and before he could answer, she let go of him and walked off, leaving him swaying on his own in the middle of the crowd.

His shaky breaths sped up in panic and his chest tightened at the multitude of faces around him and all the noise. He could not breathe and there was no escape. He backed up with his eyes darting around as the waves of colour and voices crashed over him and overwhelmed his senses. He could not get out and he felt like waves of water were smothering and drowning him. Then there were hands touching him, pulling him this way and that and he shouted at them to leave him alone, all the while he hugged the notepad against his stomach. His back hit a wall, a blessed wall where he could only now be assailed from 180 degrees. He sunk down to the floor and covered his head, rocking and whimpering. He placed the notepad in his lap so that he could look down at it to make sure no one took it and he wheezed.

"There you are, Rodney!" Jennifer said as she pulled his wrist away from his face. When she saw the state he was in, she looked abashed. "I'm really sorry! I shouldn't have brought you here. Come on, let's find somewhere quieter."

She handed him the bag she had with the soup and bread inside and then guided him out of the noisy crowd of hungry people, through the similarly rowdy corridor outside and kept going all the way to her quarters near the infirmary.

Once inside, she guided him over to the bed and he sat down with a huff.

"Feeling better?"

"Not really."

She looked at him in concern and Rodney could not stand her gaze for long and had to look away. She said, "You've not been that bad for a while."

"I know. It was too much."

Jennifer smiled. "Everyone's really excited about the planet we've found, so a little louder than usual."

She grabbed the bag and passed him a cup of soup and one of the large rolls and sat down beside him, gently bumping his shoulder with hers. She looked pointedly at the tattered notepad in his lap and said, "So, what's the big secret, then?"

Rodney sighed. His work was so close to completion there was little point in hiding it any more. "Wormhole Drive," he said.

Jennifer frowned. "Okay. What's that?"

Rodney had not expected anything less. He sighed. "It's a way of travelling vast distances in the blink of an eye."

"Like the hyperdrive?"

"No," Rodney said, keeping his temper in check. He sipped on the soup and felt the warmth slipping down his throat and into his stomach. His fingers were beginning to warm up too and the pain was diminishing.

He continued, "It's more like the Stargate, but for a spaceship."

"That's interesting."

Rodney waved his bread holding hand around as his excitement began to build at finally being able to share his labours from the past few years. "It's more than interesting! It'll revolutionise space travel!"

Jennifer eyed his bread as he moved it up and down and it sailed very close to her face.

"Imagine not having to spend hours or days in hyperspace to reach your destination, but using the Stargate to create a massive wormhole that the ship can go through and be at its destination moments later!"

Jennifer smiled, but the expression did not reach her eyes and there was little brightness in her face. "That's great, Rodney!"

But there was no fooling Rodney. He narrowed his eyes and deflated at her poorly veiled disappointment. "You're not impressed?"

"Of course I am! The General will be thrilled."

"As much as he can be," Rodney mumbled.

 _"Everyone_ will be thrilled."

Rodney frowned. "There's something else though. What's wrong?"

Jennifer sighed and her smile smoothed out. "It's just… what use is it now? We're about to land on a new planet we intend to call home for as long as the Wraith don't find us. If the drive needs a Stargate, the Daedalus won't be able to use it."

Rodney gave her a sly smile. "It's not for us. Not now."

"I don't understand."

Rodney took another swig of soup, chewing on the chunks of unnamed vegetable that were in it. "Soon after the Great Cull, I tore Janus' lab to pieces. Well, not literally," he added at Jennifer's shocked look. "I went through it looking for something, anything, that could be used against the Wraith when we returned to Earth, but I didn't find anything."

He stuffed the last piece of the bread into his mouth and continued as he chewed it, "There was nothing there. At least, nothing that was ready to be used. There were lots of schematics and outlandish ideas as we know Janus was prone to farfetched musings that lesser men would never be able to comprehend. Most of it was useless junk, but in amongst it all, buried in an encrypted file I had to get the whole science team to help me crack, there was one schematic that looked promising."

Jennifer's eyes widened as she finished off her soup and waited.

Rodney grinned, "The time travelling Puddle Jumper."

"Okay," Jennifer said slowly. "What's this got to do with Wormhole Drive?"

"The time travelling device for the Jumper was relatively easy to build once I had the schematic. Janus was certainly detailed in his notes when he knew that his contemporaries wouldn't find them. It took about a year on and off for me to build it."

"Does it work?"

Rodney sighed. "It should, but I don't know. I'll need to hook it up to a Puddle Jumper, but there are only seven left and they're either in use or in repairs all the time." Rodney finished off his soup and put the cup down on the floor, so that he could grab his notepad again and cradle it in his lap.

Jennifer's eyes met his as she said earnestly, "I'm sure when you explain it to the General, he'll understand."

"I'm not sure. He keeps the military personnel stationed around the bay at all hours."

"So, you go back in time and change something?"

Rodney smiled. "I go back in time with the Wormhole Drive schematic. I've had a lot of time to think about this, unless you thought I only sat out on the balconies to go crazy?

Jennifer gave him a sheepish smile.

"If I go to a point a couple of months before the attack on Earth and get it all ready."

"It's a big risk. Are you certain it'll work?"

Rodney looked down into his lap at the notepad sitting there. "Uh, I don't know."

 _"Rodney…"_

He blinked and gabbled. "But it will, it really will! I just haven't tested it yet!" He looked away and clutched his notepad tightly, curling the collection of well loved and abused pages in his fists. "I make sure we dial the gate before the Wraith Super Hive can dial out. I install Wormhole Drive and we get there when the Bays are still open so that we can destroy the ship before it can cull Earth. It's perfect! It can't fail!"

"Rodney, how can you be so certain?"

He furrowed his brow at the look he received, the doubt filling Jennifer was plain on her face. Doubt in him that he could succeed, mistrust. He looked away. "You think I'm crazy."

"No…"

"That watching Earth culled, a-a-and seeing so many die when I could've done something about it, which made it all my fault has made me lose my marbles."

"Not at all."

"Well, I'm as sane as I ever was and this _will_ work. I'll upload it into the system and get Radek to check it over for you if you like."

"It's not me you're going to have to convince. And you're _not_ crazy."

She placed her hand on his cheek and pulled so that he was forced to look at her. Her face was full of sadness. "I don't want you to have you live through all of this for a second time if the plan fails. If it doesn't work we could lose you. _I_ could lose you."

Rodney's mouth opened slightly and he understood. He said, "It'll work. Trust me."

Jennifer smiled sadly at him. "That's what I was afraid of."


	4. Meteor Rising

Rodney stood out on another balcony with many others as their new home world came into sight. It was blue and green and clouds swirled in the atmosphere obscuring parts of the surface with white streaks and puffs.

In the space above the northern hemisphere, there was a comet visible in the distance – far beyond the world they were heading towards.

"It is a sign of good fortune," Teyla said. "To see the meteor rise before you denotes a change in circumstance for the better."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "It's not a meteor – it's a comet and an astronomical phenomenon. Nothing more."

Teyla turned her stern expression towards Rodney. "But it heralds hope for many here, as much as the planet does. Is that not an astronomical phenomenon too?"

"Hmm, not really."

The comm activated, "General Caldwell to all hands, secure all stations and prepare for landing."

Rodney took one last look at the planet that was growing in size as they got nearer and his eyes were drawn towards the comet again. The tail was long and it was bright, meaning it was either really massive, or incredibly close. He made a mental note to run trajectory analysis on all free flying comets, asteroids and small moons in the system to make sure they weren't about to suffer an extinction level event on the delightful paradise they had chosen to set up shop.

He went inside to assist with the landing and guide Carson as necessary to make sure he landed in the sea and not on some poor unsuspecting mountain in the middle of a continent, dashing the city and last hope of mankind in the process. That would be a fine way to end the struggle of the last dregs of humanity - as an exploded smear of metal on some nameless backwater right at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy.

xxx

Landings had been so much smoother when Sheppard was in control, Rodney thought as they thumped down with such force in the ocean that the city bobbed almost completely under the water before going madly up and down like an overweight cork.

Caldwell had taken the Daedalus off the Pier to watch proceedings from orbit just in case and Rodney bet the humourless General he had fallen out of his chair in raucous laughter, so bad was their landing.

"Sorry about that everyone," Carson said over the citywide comm. "It's been a while since I landed a whole city in the ocean."

"Any landing you can walk away from…" Rodney muttered at his computer as he checked for damage but found none. He glanced up to find that Radek was grinning back at him.

Rodney could not help but smile too as cheers rang out all around him and people hugged. He grimaced and retrieved his laptop from the spaghetti jungle, snapped it shut and tucked it under his arm before anyone tried to touch him with their strange bonding ritual.

"Pon Farr has come two years early," he mumbled as he quickly vacated the room of jubilant people and trotted down the corridor and into the transporter. He pressed the button for the corridor near his private lab and did not stop to breathe properly until he got there.

"What the hell?" he said to the empty room once the door was sealed shut and he had his back pressed against it. He hugged the laptop to his chest as he cried in despair, "Has everyone already forgotten what happened and what's been lost?!"

He took a moment to catch his breath, then went over to the workbench and sat down. He eyed the unwashed empty coffee mugs that were there on the table with him, then picked one up and he imagined he could smell a very faint whiff of the coffee that had once resided in the mug. There had not been any coffee for a very long time, so he mainly kept them there for nostalgia. Rodney had tried to stage a protest at the lack of coffee, he was quickly ousted due to his guilt when the food rationing menu for the next month was posted and there was hardly anything on there per head.

"I'm really sorry, but food is more important," Rodney said to the coffee mugs as he always did when he saw them to remind himself of the sacrifice. He waggled his finger, "But chocolate is more important than food." He grinned, but the mugs merely sat there emptily, not caring to join the conversation as they once again shunned him. He put the one he held back in its place on the table and sighed sadly.

He shook his head as he booted up the computer on the table and plugged his laptop in next to it. While he waited for them to load up and sync he asked the room, "What were they all so happy about? Earth is still dead and gone. Billions are still dead. Millions are probably dying right now and they sure aren't the Wraith. A few palm trees and an ocean full of salty water won't bring them back."

The computer beeped at him when it was ready and he set to work, scanning the system. He hit his radio. "Radek, if you're not busy back patting with all the other happy souls and celebrating our above average landing, could you help me set up a program to scan for comets and asteroids that might want to kill us?"

"Where did you go, Rodney? The city is secure and I am currently helping Jennifer to test the atmosphere for poisonous toxins the Daedalus didn't detect when it was here a few months ago. Then we can lower the shield and begin planting. I was then going to configure the gate unless you are too busy to do that?"

Rodney was put out. "You saw that comet with all the others, right?! If that hits us, we're dead!"

"I am sure the Daedalus could destroy anything that gets too close," Radek said in an annoyed tone. "But I am not stopping you from running the scans."

Rodney grimaced and said, "Well, thanks for all your help." He cut the line and sighed, setting the computer up to scan and calculate with help from the Lantean hardware. It did not take long to do, then he reconfigured the gate. He loaded the gate adjustments onto a crystal then radioed an unsuspecting minion to come and retrieve it so that he did not have to mingle with any hugging or crying people.

Happy people just annoyed him and made him snappy. Rodney vowed to start a petition to ban happiness. Why should anyone be allowed to celebrate when he was so miserable?

xxx

"The answer is no," Caldwell said.

Rodney glared at him across the Briefing Room table where he had just run through his plan with Radek's reluctant assistance. Jennifer was there for moral support, but President Woolsey was looking as doubtful as she herself had looked when Rodney had presented his idea to her a few weeks ago.

The shield was now down and most of the population were assisting with the planting or offworld harvesting and hunting now that the gate was operational again.

"But it will work! Radek checked it too and agrees!"

Caldwell sat forward in his chair and said, "Well, I'm not one hundred percent convinced that it would work."

Rodney opened his mouth to protest, but Caldwell dismissed him with a small hand motion. "Not because I doubt you, but because the technology is so far beyond our understanding."

Rodney folded his arms, _"Your_ understanding maybe."

Caldwell frowned and Rodney saw that Jennifer was looking away and seemed very uncomfortable.

Rodney softened his expression when he saw he had upset her and said in a quieter, less annoyed voice, "All that I ask for is one Puddle Jumper and a chance to test it."

Woolsey said, "We only have seven Jumpers left and each one is too valuable to risk in case something goes wrong."

"It won't," Rodney said.

Caldwell shook his head. "There is no complete guarantee that it won't. We are barely able to feed everyone with all the Puddle Jumpers operational all the time."

Radek said, "But now that we have landed on a viable planet, we can use the Daedalus' transporters to move crops and people as needed."

Rodney nodded his thanks to his friend. "Just one ship. I'll only need it for a couple of days to test the time travel device. If it works, we'll never be in this position at all."

Woolsey frowned as he looked disapprovingly at Rodney, "I hope you haven't spent too much time on this little project of yours - valuable time that could've been spent helping the harvesters or hunters or finding a way to build more Puddle Jumpers."

Rodney visibly deflated where he stood and Jennifer looked at him sadly.

Caldwell stood up and said, "Excuse me, I need to return to the Daedalus to oversee an F302 training exercise."

Woolsey stood up too and they both left the room.

"I'm sorry, Rodney," Radek said as Rodney stared into space. "I have to get back to finish some diagnostics." Radek pursed his lips when he received no response, then nodded to Jennifer and left.

Rodney could not take his eyes away from the edge of the table on the opposite side of the room, but he was not really looking at it. Hands caught him as he folded and eased him down into one of the chairs. Jennifer sat next to him on the same side of the table so that they were facing each other. Rodney was now staring at a point slightly to the right of Jennifer's hip.

She leant forwards and took both of his hands in hers and squeezed. "Rodney?"

He opened his mouth, "I, uh…"

"Come on. There's work to do."

Rodney furrowed his brow. "They're all dead. All of them and they're not coming back!"

"I'm here. So are you. So are many others."

Rodney narrowed his eyes and blinked slowly. He whispered, "It would work. I'm certain of it."

Jennifer shook his hands and kept a hold on him. "I know it would and they know it too, but they have to consider the whole picture. It's too risky for them because they don't understand how brilliant you are."

Rodney frowned and blinked again. "I'm brilliant?" His eyes flickered and he looked up at her and the earnest expression on her face shook him to the core. "I know that! At least, I used to… before all of this."

"You're the most intelligent man in two galaxies, probably more," Jennifer said with a nod.

"I really am. I vaguely remember that I used to say that all the time, but it's hardly a time for genius when all that everyone cares about is dinner."

Jennifer smiled and Rodney felt his mood lifting a little. "Besides, when did you have to obey orders? We're both civilians so Caldwell can't control us and Woolsey can't do anything much either."

"Stage a little coup?"

Jennifer frowned. "No, but we could sign up for one the Puddle Jumper offworld supply runs?"

"That might look a bit suspicious. Caldwell will probably order his men to shoot me on sight if I get within ten metres of a Puddle Jumper."

Jennifer squeezed his hands again and then let go. "You'll just have to wait a bit until they forget and pretend it hasn't affected you."

Rodney nodded and finally began to return her smile. "If things go wrong, you can all still survive with only six Puddle Jumpers."

"Don't say that…"

Rodney shook his head. "I ran the calculation a long time ago and reran it a few days ago to compensate for the increasing population. If worst comes to worst and the ship is destroyed, you'll all live, even if you have to leave this world."

Jennifer looked back at him sadly and his chest tightened a little.

xxx

"Making yourself useful finally, McKay?" a marine sneered as Rodney signed in with him as he entered the Jumper Bay a few months later.

"Something like that," Rodney said as he looked around shiftily.

The marine sighed in boredom and forced a clipboard into Rodney's chest, nearly knocking him over. "Here's your planet and here's your timetable. Use Jumper Five."

Rodney grabbed the board and rubbed his bruised ribs with his other hand as he protested, "Ow!"

"Whatever. Be back in time or you're off rotation."

Rodney gulped and nodded as the marine walked away. He made his way to the ship and suddenly he felt dread bubbling up inside him. It had been over five years since he had flown one of the craft. Jennifer was right, Caldwell had to keep them on a tight leash as there were so few left. For a moment Rodney was unsure if he remembered how to fly one.

He walked into the rear compartment and sealed the door. "I wish John was here with me," he said into the empty cockpit as he glanced wistfully at the co-pilot's chair and then looked at the pilot's seat. "And Ronon and Teyla backing us up." Their seats were empty too and his heart was filled with sadness and nostalgia. He rarely saw them and he never found out what happened to John. "Probably dead," he said. "Like everyone else," the thoughts weighed heavily on him as he settled into the pilot's seat.

"But if this works, they're all coming back and none of this will ever happen."

He pulled out his computer, plugged it into the Jumper console and scrambled the comm channel he needed. He reconfigured it to carry on an undetectable power conduit frequency, activating it once he was done. "Paradox to Wormhole, come in," Rodney said, wincing at Jennifer's call signs.

"This is Wormhole," Radek answered.

Rodney tossed the tiny beacon he had constructed into the rear compartment and said, "Ready."

A few seconds later and there was a flash of white as Radek hijacked the Daedalus transporter to beam Rodney's device into the rear compartment.

"Got it."

"Good luck, Rod- Paradox."

"You too."

Rodney turned off the comm. and flew the ship off the ground with ease, it wasn't that hard even without any practice for a long time. He dialled the gate address on the clipboard he had been given. The autopilot snagged the ship and lowered it into the gate room, where it was catapulted through the open wormhole in front of it.

A moment later and Rodney was flying through space towards the planet below. He glanced at the clipboard briefly and then tossed it aside as he aimed the ship for a random island out in the sea of the looming planet. He was supposed to be picking up some harvested crops and checking in with the people who had been sent from Atlantis to gather them, but he only intended to test the device by going back in time a few days to start with.

If it worked, he would pick up the crops right on schedule in a few minutes.

He winced at the confusing paradox – it was going to be a few days for him, possibly more if the device did not work properly and he went back too far. His computer held a few gate addresses in it, so he would never be stranded no matter what happened.

He only prayed that he did not go backwards or forwards by thousands or millions of years or he was doomed…


	5. Hyperlight

Rodney landed the Jumper as far away as he could from any of the life signs he saw on the HUD. Hopefully they were just friendly fauna, but he did not want to risk being eaten or having the Jumper stepped on by an inattentive dinosaur or something as equally large and stupid while he was working. He parked it in an isolated spot and then set to work.

He had already said his goodbyes to the only two people in on the plan – Jennifer and Radek, and those words weighed heavily in his heart. Whether his plan succeeded or failed, he would never see them again the way he knew them now after they had been through so much. But equally important to him was that he would not have to endure the way they both sometimes zoned out, just like he did, lost in thoughts of despair and sorrow over what had transpired.

He grabbed his computer, went into the rear compartment and studied the time travel device he had constructed. It was worryingly small, but Janus had been very clear in his logs and schematics as to the exact nature of its design. He had even been kind enough to leave behind some key components in his hidden lab which Rodney would not have been able to construct from scratch.

He pulled down the crystal tray and grabbed the bag of leads, setting to work interfacing the device with the Puddle Jumper's systems as per the schematics he had downloaded to his computer.

xxx

Two days later and after running all of the prescribed diagnostics in Janus’ log, Rodney found that everything finally seemed to be working and in the green. Luckily, nothing on the planet had taken a fancy to tinned McKay and tried to pry the ship open to eat him. All the food that he had managed to squirrel away about his person was now gone. He was beginning to feel hungry and dizzy, so now was the perfect time to try out the device.

"Now or never," he said as he headed into the cockpit, plugged his computer into the console and placed it in front of the control sticks so that he could read it and fly the ship at the same time.

As he guided the ship off the ground, he was once again pleased at how the interface responded to his thoughts – it had been so long. "Everyone will soon be saved and you'll all be back here with me," he said to the silent, empty seats around him.

He flew the ship up and up until the atmosphere gave way to darker blue and then the stars came out as he soared all the way into the blackness of space. He set the controls on the time travel device for two days in the past just a few minutes after he had come through the Stargate and entered the planet's atmosphere. He wondered if the ship needed to be moving when the device was active, or if it needed to be at a certain speed or anything.

"This isn't a Delorian," he mumbled as he double checked the logs and found no mention of it.

This particular device had some modifications built into it, but as Janus had run out of time before fleeing to Earth with the rest of his people, it had never been built. Rodney wondered what the modifications were, but trusted that Janus in his brilliance had done the calculations correctly and programmed the crystals properly. There was no mention of unfortunate side effects in the logs, like Stargates exploding or anything, but if Janus had never had a chance to build and test it…

Rodney closed his eyes and hoped that he was not about to meet an untimely end (grimacing at the pun his mind provided). "Here goes…"

He pressed the button and was instantly dragged through into a vortex. If this was his death, he thought, he should at least gather enough courage to open his eyes, so he did. The colour of the vortex was like nothing he had ever seen before and it was bright to the point that he could only look at it for a few seconds. Janus had hypothesised its existence in his logs and called it hyperlight, but Rodney preferred to call it swirling scary-death as he shut his eyes again and prayed for it to be over soon.

And as abruptly as it had started, it was all over and the Jumper was spat from the vortex and back into what _looked_ like normal space.

It took a few seconds for the instruments to respond to Rodney's button pressing and frantic mental commands, but when they did, they told him that the planet below was the same one he had just left in his personal linear timeline. The Stargate was directly behind him and he frowned – this was not the same spatial position where he had entered the vortex.

He turned around and found the device was still glowing softly at him from where it was hooked up to the control crystal tray and powering down. His frown deepened when he realised that he was no longer hungry. "Odd."

He ran some scans to find out if he could tell what the time was, but to no avail. He searched for the other Jumper containing himself, but it was not around anywhere. Morbid thoughts filled Rodney's mind – had he gone back a thousand years? Even a few years would be catastrophic for the timeline. He swallowed nervously – had he gone forward in time? That might be even worse. Was he the last man alive in the universe like what had happened to Sheppard six years ago in Rodney's time?

He pressed the comm with some hesitation. "Jumper Five to Colony, please respond."

"This is the Colony. You're right on time, go ahead."

Rodney breathed a massive sigh of relief and then furrowed his brow. "Is that Dr. Parrish?"

"Yes... oh, Rodney, is that you? I didn't think you did supply runs!"

"I don't usually," he sighed. "I heard you have some harvest to collect."

"Yes, the plants have been growing well in this climate. We are way above the predicted yield." Rodney grimaced as Parrish yammered on and on about his calculations in hydration, leaf size and sunlight.

Rodney did not care for the studying of plants, but he also knew they were a necessary evil for the survival of the human race. Although he had liked Katie Brown back in the day, he did not think botany or biology were sciences any more so than he thought medicine was, but he had never dared to tell her that. He sighed sadly, Katie had gone back to Earth shortly after they had split up and he had not seen her since. The Atlantis census had not revealed her to be one of the survivors of the cull and Rodney knew she was either dead or living in a nightmare on what was left of Earth.

Rodney set the Jumper to remain in orbit above the colony while he hastily made his way into the rear compartment and unplugged the time travel device. He could not have it there when he landed as he would not be able to answer the questions, he also needed the space for the crates of food that were to be loaded on board.

It was easy enough to unplug and Rodney brought it into the cockpit and settled it down on the seat beside him, hoping no one would see it and ask awkward questions.

He angled the Jumper's nose towards the planet below and began the descent.

xxx

A few hours later and with the Jumper laden with crates of food and a couple of people who needed to return to Atlantis sitting in the seats behind him, Rodney dialled up the gate and flew through. He let the autopilot snag the small ship and guide it up into the bay. There was no way he was getting out before the crates were unloaded, so he waited and took some time to analyse the data on his computer from the trial run.

He hummed.

"What is that?" one of his overly curious new companions asked.

"None of your business," Rodney snapped back at the man.

"Touchy," the woman with him replied.

Rodney pressed his lips in a tight line as the last of the crates were removed from the rear compartment by the marines who had been waiting.

The man and woman left the ship and Rodney sighed. The marines had also gone after they had finished loading the crates onto trolleys and taken them off to the food storage bays.

When Rodney was totally sure he was alone - by way of checking the life signs detector on the HUD, he tapped his radio. "This is Paradox, come in Radek," Rodney said quietly.

"Reading you. How did it go?"

"I'll tell you later, lock to these co-ordinates."

The time travelling device vanished in a shower of white stars and Rodney relaxed. None of Caldwell's marines had seen it, so he was safe… for now.

xxx

Rodney caught up with Radek and a very anxious Jennifer later in his quarters. This discussion was not one that could be conducted in a public place.

Rodney sat on the bed while Jennifer sat in his desk chair and Radek perched uncomfortably on the desk. Rodney had his computer out - no one had even raised an eyebrow at him when he left the Jumper with the computer.

"It worked perfectly," Rodney said. He smiled, "Better than perfectly! It seems that if you travel to a time when you are there already, your consciousness moves into your body at that particular time."

Radek baulked, "So, you do not have to worry about meeting yourself and other annoying little paradoxes?"

"Exactly." Rodney grinned widely, but his expression fell when he saw that Jennifer was looking sad.

"What's wrong?" Rodney asked. "I thought you would be happy - this is a massive breakthrough!"

She sighed, but still did not look at him. "I know."

Rodney furrowed his brow, "Then I don't understand."

She finally looked up away from the floor and directly at him and Rodney saw the true depths of misery in her eyes. She said, "Then this is the end for us and everything we've done here."

Rodney shook his head. "No. If all goes to plan how I envisioned it while I was working on the device and Wormhole Drive - and there's no reason why it shouldn't now - we'll never be here in the first place. I'll be the only one who remembers what transpired in this timeline."

"We'll cease to exist," Radek enthused. "I'd be glad if that happened. Since Earth was culled, things have been... not so good."

Rodney nodded and beamed at Jennifer. She gave him a weak smile in return as she said, "Then this is goodbye."

"I know. But not forever. I'll see you five years in the past and things will be different although I'll be the only one who remembers them."

Radek gestured at Rodney's computer that he was still holding onto for dear life. "You have the schematics for Wormhole Drive on there?"

"Yes. When the computer is linked to the drive, it moves in time like the drive does, so the data will survive any time jumps."

"And it will work?"

Rodney grimaced. "I'm 90% certain that it will, but the only way to know for sure is to install and test it."

Jennifer said, "Caldwell and Woolsey will never let you do that to Atlantis - there are thousands of people living here now and they'd never want to jeopardise that!"

Rodney nodded. "I know - it was one thing to test out the time travel device on the Puddle Jumper, but I'll have to test the Wormhole Drive on the Atlantis in the past - the one that isn't the last hope of the human race."

"What about the gate corrections?"

Rodney said, "I have everything - I have the programme that will drop Atlantis out of hyperspace even earlier so that we can dial the gate on the Wraith Super Hive before they dial out and stop us from doing it. With Wormhole Drive, we'll be there in an instant."

Radek nodded and Jennifer finally gave him a bigger smile, but her eyes still looked melancholy.

xxx

Rodney sat in the Jumper again a few days later. He would only have one shot at this in this reality and if he failed, there may not be another chance in any timeline for the Wormhole Drive to be tested. If the drive did not work, it would destroy Atlantis in the past. He supposed if that happened then it would not matter because he would be beyond caring about it when he was dead and gone.

He grimaced - the final goodbye with Jennifer and Radek had been hard, but if all went to plan, he would see them again very soon and they would not bear the burden of the memories of what had transpired as he would.

Rodney powered up the Jumper's engines and allowed the autopilot to snag it as he dialled the gate for the next colony.

He tapped his radio, "Beam it, Radek."

The time travel device materialised in the rear compartment and Rodney looked at it sadly. He checked his computer was there and double checked the data he needed was present.

"Good luck and goodbye," Radek said sadly over the comm.

"Thanks. I'll see you in minus five years."

Jennifer said, "If it doesn't work, I'm glad we had this time together and were able to share each other's company for the past five years."

Rodney blinked slowly and his mouth went dry. "I know. I mean... me too. But I'll see you again and things will be better this time, I promise."

The Jumper lined up with the gate in the gate room and sailed through without Rodney having to command it. The blue puddle then became the blackness of star strewn space ahead and just before the gate shut down behind him, he heard Jennifer whisper a sad: "Goodbye."

Rodney furrowed his brow and wiped his eyes. That had been a lot harder than he had expected, but he was glad that soon they would not remember any of it or be filled with such sorrow as they currently had.

Rodney took his computer and went into the rear compartment. He hooked the time travel device up to the control crystal tray with relative ease now that he knew what he was doing and had a diagram to follow. Satisfied that the device was rigged up correctly, he double checked it, walked away for and moment then came back and triple checked it.

He smiled with grim satisfaction and went into the cockpit, once more resting his computer on the console in front of him. He set the time for a couple of months before the Wraith Super Hive was due to gain extra power - a couple of months before the culling of Earth began and his hand hovered over the activate button.

"Goodbye, Jennifer," Rodney said as quietly and sadly as she had. "I'll see you really soon."

He closed his eyes and pressed the activate button and once again the hyperlight of the time vortex swished past him and the Jumper as he rewound the past five years. As the bright lights closed in around him and bathed the interior of the Jumper in ungodly colours, Rodney's eyes slid shut and he faded from awareness.


	6. The First Divergence

When Rodney came to, he was sitting at a desk in a lab on Atlantis with his face stuck to a computer keyboard. He winced as he sat up and his neck and back muscles protested. Then he looked at the screen and his eyebrows rose. Sighing at the page after page of letter 'h' that had been produced by his nose during his slumber, he deleted the offensive parts of the file.

It took a few more minutes for his senses to fully awaken and he checked the clock and smiled when he found it was only a couple of hours after the exact moment he had programmed into the time travelling Jumper. He had slept for that time while his body recovered from the lag.

He hit his radio, "McKay to Sheppard!"

It took about a minute for a response and Rodney's heart pounded so fast that he felt a little light headed.

A grumpy voice responded, "It's the middle of the night, Rodney."

Rodney grinned widely as the thumping in his chest lessened and was replaced by a bubble of joy that he had not felt for five long years. He momentarily forgot himself as he said, "It's good to hear your voice."

"You heard my voice a couple of hours ago, Rodney," John drawled back. "Get some sleep."

"Listen, I feel hungry, do you want to get a midnight snack in the Mess?"

John sighed into the radio.

"I had a bad dream," Rodney said quickly. "A _really_ bad dream."

"Alright, but only for a few minutes, I've got early morning training."

Rodney all but leapt from his stool, nearly falling over on his wobbly, slightly numb legs. "I'll see you in a sec!" He jogged from the lab, his mouth already watering at the prospect of eating chocolate and drinking coffee after so long without it.

xxx

Rodney proposed his idea to Radek about Wormhole Drive two months before the cull of Earth would begin. Together, they worked diligently to have it operational. Rodney never once shared what had happened or where he had come from. He said the Wormhole Drive was his idea and a secret project he had been working on since the Ancient device had increased his intelligence. It was a plausible lie and Radek bought it with minimal questioning.

Rodney worked on his normal projects through the day - far more efficiently the second time around, even though to him five years had passed. He often found himself batting invisible hair away from his eyes out of habit, but found that his hair was short as it had once been. He looked guiltily around the lab where he sat working, but no one had noticed.

Rodney spent the rest of his waking hours (and some hours when he should have been sleeping) hard at work on installing the Wormhole Drive protocols and running simulations. It was freeing not to have Supreme Rulers, His Highness Lord Caldwell and His Majesty King Woolsey breathing down his neck and questioning what he was doing. The Woolsey of five years past was much better at allowing him to get on with his work without questions. Some asked what he was doing or what the urgency was, but Rodney shrugged them off and frequently fell asleep at his desk in the science lab. But it did not matter to him - only Earth mattered. It was hard not being able to tell anyone what had happened, especially John, but needs must, so he didn't.

"Are you okay, Rodney?" John asked him one day as he sat in the Mess Hall staring off into space and remembering the hopelessness at which they had arrived at Earth and seen the seven unstoppable Hives culling their fill of the six billion souls from the planet below.

"Hmm? Oh, sure. I was just thinking..."

John smirked. "Well, don't strain anything." John lowered his voice, "But seriously, you don't seem all here these days. Did something happen between you and Keller?"

"What? No!"

"Then what? You seem haunted... distant."

Rodney shook himself. "It's nothing, just a big project I'm working on."

"Alright," John said, sounding like he did not believe a word of it. "But don't let it affect your health or I'll have to get the infirmary to check you over for alien parasites."

Rodney shivered - that incident had been nearly six years ago for him now, but still a fresh memory and very recent event for John and the others.

Rodney nodded and continued to ruminate over his third cup of coffee and second double chocolate muffin. Oh, how he had missed chocolate in the past five years! So he stuffed down as much as he could.

xxx

When the Wraith Super Hive was created, Rodney's inner tension ratcheted up to such an extent that he collapsed and had to be rescued by John with a chocolate bar and a bottle of water. "I'm fine," Rodney protested as John tried to get him to the infirmary. "Nothing is more important than destroying that Hive!"

John nodded and drawled, "I know, but not to the detriment of your health. We've been in bad sticks before and always pulled through."

"I know," Rodney said. "But this is worse." He let his guard down for a moment where he lay on the floor and tried to gather his thoughts together. "If we let them reach Earth there's nothing we'll be able to do to stop them!"

"We'll find a way, we always do."

John was then recalled through the gate to defend Earth.

Atlantis fell out of hyperspace right on schedule after Rodney had uploaded his program. It was a couple of hours earlier than they had in his timeline. Things were now different, Rodney thought, he was forging a different timeline and anything was now possible.

Rodney remained tense until he had run the program to fix the gate so that they could dial. They dialled and the wormhole connected. Rodney was even more relieved that it led onto the Super Hive just as he had planned. He was less than happy when he was chosen for the boarding party.

A few hours later and Atlantis landed safely on Earth in the Pacific Ocean after the destruction of the Hive and Rodney felt like the weight of a whole galaxy had been lifted from his shoulders.

xxx

John caught up with Rodney a couple of days later while the scientist had his head buried in a wall panel, trying to hunt down the source of the minor power drain in the area. He had not stopped to breathe or think since they had landed safely on the unculled and almost untouched Earth. He had fallen asleep wherever he had happened to be at the time his body gave out on him and slipped into uneasy sleep full of memories of death and hopelessness in the alternate future he had lived through.

"What are you up to, Rodney?"

He jumped and hit his head on the top of the open panel. Grunting and swearing, Rodney extracted himself and glared. "John."

Sheppard was standing nearby with his hands behind his back, his face was twisted in such a way that told Rodney he was trying to look serious and not laugh, but the battle was still going on and he appeared to be losing.

Rodney huffed, "I'm busy and you're blocking my light."

"Looking for stowaways in there?" John asked.

Rodney sighed. "Something like that."

John unclasped his hands and brought them down by his sides so that he could gesture while he spoke. "I've only seen you once since we landed and Carter says there are plenty of scientists to fix up Atlantis while we all get some R and R." He moved closer so that the whole panel was in shadow and Rodney was forced to look at him. John narrowed his eyes. "We saved Earth. I know it was _really_ close this time, but we still did it."

Rodney felt bewildered so went with what he knew and understood. "Lots of work to do, if you don't mind, Colonel. This city won't repair itself."

"Did something happen to you?" John asked without looking away.

"I don't know what you mean," Rodney said, feeling distinctly uncomfortable under John's scrutinising glare. It felt like Sheppard's eyes were boring into him so much that he would be able to read Rodney's thoughts. An image of the time travelling device now safely removed from the Jumper and hidden away in his quarters flashed unbidden across Rodney's mind. His hands started to shake.

John instantly noticed and asked, "When was the last time you ate anything?"

"I don't know," Rodney said, grateful for the change of subject.

"Well, the battle is over for now and I can't see any spacemice in there," John indicated the open panel. "Let's go and get some food."

"I'm not hungry," Rodney said half-heartedly, but he knew he had already lost as John raised his eyebrows in a 'don't make me force you' expression.

xxx

"I was thinking that you would be taking some much needed leave while we're temporarily back on Earth," John said to Rodney in the almost empty Mess Hall at lunchtime. Most of the expedition had abandoned ship shortly after they had landed to take the opportunity to visit friends and relatives after their close call.

Rodney munched on a sandwich thoughtfully. "You think we're going back?"

John chewed on his fresh strawberries. "Sure. Once we set Ronon and Teyla on the IOA, they'll be eating out of our hands."

"I don't know. Now that Atlantis is on Earth, they'll want to take it to pieces and find out how it works. They'd never let such a great asset go."

"We'll see." He spooned more fruit, while Rodney started to scoff down chocolate muffins.

John asked, "So, why aren't you off base visiting Jeannie or something?"

Rodney snorted into his dessert. "And why are _you_ still here?"

"There are some new recruits to train and even on stand down there always needs to be one person on base with the gene in case things happen and the city has to be flown or something."

"Hmm. What about Lorne?"

"He's with his family. Ronon and Teyla are in Hawaii." John looked away and frowned, "At least they were a few days ago. They might be in New York by now."

Rodney had an image of people staring at the two strange people as Teyla dragged Ronon around all the clothes shops and made him carry all the bags for her. He smiled – he hoped Ronon had been relieved of his blaster.

"So…" John drawled, dropping his spoon into the empty bowl.

Rodney held his breath – here it came.

"What happened to make you carry on working even though we're not under immediate attack or the usual impending doom?"

Rodney furrowed his brow and looked away. He could feel John's eyes burning into him and his chest tightened.

"In fact, you changed a few weeks ago. I've hardly seen you at all."

Rodney swallowed and looked up as he mumbled. "Remember what happened to you last year, you told us you went forward in time."

John grimaced. "How could I forget?"

"You were told about a possible future, although you still haven't told us very much about it."

"It doesn't matter now," John said as his expression smoothed out. "Hardly any of it happened."

"A similar thing happened to me," Rodney said in a small voice.

John all but exploded. "Why didn't you tell us!? When did it happen? Where did you go?"

Rodney flinched away from his questions and once more longed for the starlit silence of the cold balconies he had frequented for so long in another time. "I didn't say anything in case it happened again! You're hardly one to criticise Colonel Tell All!"

John sighed, his frown dissipating. "I know."

Rodney closed his eyes as he spoke. "I didn't go forward in time like you did, nor was I merely told about the future." He opened his eyes. "I lived through it."

"The Wraith Super Hive?"

"Culled Earth and Atlantis arrived too late and we couldn't destroy it."

"I'm so sorry, Rodney."

Rodney frowned. "Why the hell are _you_ sorry? You were dead…"

John flinched.

"…along with so many others." Rodney's breathing sped up as his chest tightened further and he could not get enough air.

Above the rushing of blood thundering past his ears, the room swooped and faded out. There was a voice talking to him and it was a while before he could discern any of the words for a while. Eventually his hearing started to come back like a badly tuned radio. "It's alright, Rodney. You're safe. Nothing happened. Deep breaths."

Rodney blinked up at Sheppard where he was lying on the floor. He felt a little bit sick, regretting all the chocolate he had just consumed. "Sorry," he said miserably.

"Come on, let's go and get some air." John nodded to the people who had come over in concern. "Thanks, we're good."

xxx

"So tell me what happened then," John said as he and Rodney sat out on deck chairs on the South Pier. The comfy chairs had been set up shortly after Atlantis had returned to Earth so those that were left on base could enjoy the warmth of the Pacific sunshine. There was a no fly and no shipping zone all around the base so that it could remain uncloaked to conserve power. The Earth governments had spun some yarn about an erupting volcano that would down any plane that got too close.

Rodney closed his eyes - he was safely under a parasol to protect his pale skin from burning. The brightness of the sun he had not seen for many years was as alien to him as this new, better timeline. "We didn't make it to Earth in time and the cull was already too far along for us to stand a chance of defeating the Super Hive. There was nothing we could do."

John frowned. "What happened to me?"

Rodney shook his head. "Missing, presumed dead. We never found you, but there were millions, perhaps, billions of others we never found either."

Rodney felt the beginnings of another panic attack coming on and John kept quiet for a moment.

Gulls circled overhead, an unfamiliar sight above the city for there had been few seabirds on Lantea or their second home planet in the Pegasus - they had been too far away from land for them. They cried out against the winds and updrafts from the piers that held them aloft. They were probably after food too, but there was not any to be had from the city.

Rodney did not really feel like talking about what had happened now that he was finally free from it. John did not ask anything else about his own fate in the alternate timeline. He was able to figure it out as well as Rodney could.

John asked another question. "How long did you live in the future?"

"Five and a half years."

John whistled. "That sucks."

"Yes."

"How did you get back and change the timeline?"

Rodney glared at him as well as he could with his unshaded eyes in the sunlight. "Would you like my full written memoirs or will the abridged version do?"

John smiled. "In full, with no punches pulled."

Rodney sighed. "Janus' Lab had a schematic and components for a time travel device. I fitted it on a Jumper and here I am."

John did not press any further and they sat on the Pier together in silence for a few hours. Rodney enjoyed the light and heat - it had been so long since he had been on a planet and been able to enjoy it and relax - he had had nothing but Lantean walls and cold, dark space for the past five years.


	7. Home

A few months later and Atlantis was on its way back to the Pegasus Galaxy in conventional hyperdrive. The Wormhole Drive, while fast and brilliant, was now reserved for emergencies only due to the prohibitive amount of power that it used. The IOA had been reluctant to let them leave and make Earth completely defenceless unless the Daedalus or Apollo or newly commissioned Hammond were in orbit. Rodney assured them that the first mission they would go on would be to secure the chair on the sister Atlantis they had found three years (or eight for Rodney's memory) ago.

None of the nations of Earth could decide which one would be allowed to have the great City of the Ancients in their waters, so rather than fighting over it indefinitely, they chose the final option – if no single nation could have it, then none of them would.

Rodney and Radek spent some time knocking together a dummy chair that looked the same and lit up prettily when it was reclined. "Better than the one we left them with," Rodney mumbled.

Atlantis soared through the blue light of hyperspace on its way back to the Pegasus Galaxy, full of supplies and refreshed people. Even Rodney had begun to relax with John's help over the past couple of weeks. It was hard for him to let go of his memories of what had once been and he still suffered many nightmares and sleepless nights. Jennifer had given him some good pills that had him off to sleep before his thoughts took over and chased him sleeplessly through the night.

They landed on the same planet they had left many months before. Teyla and Ronon immediately departed with Torren to check in with the Athosians, while Lorne took Radek and a team of scientists with the new chair to barter for the working chair on the planet with the Tower.

That freed up John and Rodney to plan some missions to check in with their allies in the Pegasus Galaxy and find out what had happened over the past few months.

Teyla and Ronon returned a couple of days later. "All is well," Teyla said with a smile. Ronon grunted an affirmative.

A day later and Rodney stood with his team by the Stargate ready for their first offworld mission since returning. He had a lump in his throat and no matter how much he drank or swallowed, he could not get rid of it.

John moved closer until they were standing shoulder to shoulder. Rodney muttered to him. "It's been a long time..."

John nodded. "You'll be fine. We're only checking in with the Laranians. We've been there many times before and there's nothing to worry about."

Rodney could not help the fluttering of his heart in his chest as he fought to swallow down his nostalgia and nerves.

John gestured to Chuck. "Dial it up."

The chevrons locked into place and the wormhole formed. Ronon and Teyla went first and Rodney followed with some coaxing and gentle prodding from John and they stepped through.

The cool wind hit Rodney full in the face once he walked out into the swaying grass that was around the gate on Larania. There was a pleasant scent of flowers that made his nose run and he winced. "What's that smell?"

Ronon smirked at him and Teyla rolled her eyes.

They trekked the short distance from the gate and all was silent. The sun was bright overhead, but not too hot. Rodney's unease began to build as they got closer to the settlement.

"Where are all the farmers?" Teyla asked. "They have let the fruit rot in the sun." She gestured to the fields on either side and the overgrown corn.

"Maybe they found something else to trade?" John suggested.

Teyla looked doubtful. "Fruit and corn is the only commodity of value on Larania."

Rodney pulled out his scanner.

"Anything," John asked.

"No energy readings." He gasped as he switched it to scan for lifesigns.

Ronon moved closer to him. "What's wrong?"

Rodney tapped the scanner with his other hand, then closed his eyes briefly. "There must be something wrong with it."

John unfastened one of the velcro pockets on his tac vest and pulled out his own scanner. He tossed it to Rodney, who fumbled with it with his left hand (his right holding his own scanner). Ronon rescued it and passed it to Rodney. He loaded it up and stopped walking. He spun on the spot. "I'm only reading five life signs. Our own and one in the village somewhere."

Teyla frowned. "There were hundreds of people here."

"Maybe they were culled," Ronon said. At Teyla's horrified look he said sombrely, "It happens."

"Everyone?" John asked.

"All but one. This way," Rodney passed John's scanner back to him, then gestured towards the edge of the village they were approaching with his own.

There was a run down farmhouse constructed of crumbling brick at the outer edge of the village. Rodney headed towards it, but Ronon quickly placed a hand on his chest to slow him so that the tall Satedan could lead the way. Rodney huffed in annoyance, but let him do it.

Teyla stood at the back of the group, while John moved alongside Rodney. "Where is he?"

"Right in the middle of the building."

"There are several doors," Ronon said as they got nearer. "I'll take the back."

John nodded. "Teyla go on that side, we'll stay here. Flush him out if you have to, but I'm hoping he'll want to talk and tell us what happened."

They parted company and John stood with Rodney by the third door. He tapped his radio. "Ronon, Teyla, I'll go in first. Stand ready."

John crept up and knocked on the door. Rodney kept his scanner up and studied the unmoving life sign. John glanced at him and Rodney shook his head.

John tested the door and it opened easily.

"Careful," Rodney said as they went inside.

They had got halfway into the large open hallway of the run down house when a man ran out at them, shouting the place down in a voice that sent chills of terror crawling across Rodney's skin. He only had a moment to see a wild haired, wide eyed man before he lost all his breath as the crazy man barrelled into him. There was pressure over his hips as the man straddled him and punched him in the chest and stomach. Rodney held his arms up to protect his face and they got a good pummelling too. He could not do anything to stop the attack, as it was so frenzied.

A red bolt of light flew towards him and engulfed the man who collapsed down onto Rodney, knocking what remaining air he had left out of his battered lungs.

John pulled the man off and Rodney lay gasping in pain. "Wh-what the hell?" Rodney choked out, feeling the bruises forming.

Ronon hastily tied the man up while John and Teyla helped Rodney. He was having trouble breathing, for every breath pushed his tight tac vest against the bruising from the punches. "Ow ow ow," he said sadly and closed his eyes.

John unzipped his tac vest and Rodney's breathing eased a little, but he was sore and aching all over. "Ribs seem to be okay," John said as he ran his hands across Rodney's chest.

"Thank you... for that diagnosis... Dr. Sheppard."

John gave him a tight smile and then shared a worried look with Teyla. Rodney glanced down at himself and saw there was a tear and a damp patch in the middle of his shirt. "What's that?" he asked in alarm.

"The zip on your vest," Teyla said. "It grazed your chest a little."

Rodney closed his eyes and tilted his head back. "Great. First mission back in the Pegasus Galaxy and I'm already about to be signed off the offworld teams for a while."

"He's waking up," Ronon called to them. "That was fast, he's tough."

"Why are crazy people always so strong?" Rodney asked as Teyla and John helped him up. He held his arm against his chest and winced. He downed a couple of painkillers from his medkit along with half the bottle of water he was carrying.

Ronon glared at the man and spun his blaster around lazily. The man swallowed, focus returning to his eyes where he sat and came round from the effects of the stun blast. As his senses returned, he looked around the room and at the four people with him. He began to struggle against the bonds Ronon had used to tie him to the chair.

"Are those going to hold him?" Rodney asked nervously.

Ronon threw him a quick glare, then returned all his attention to the man.

"Never mind."

Teyla stood a safe distance away. "We are not here to harm you. Please, let us help you."

"Dead. Dead." The man said in a flat voice. "All dead. You are too late."

"I knew it," Rodney said, trying unsuccessfully to fold his arms and only hurting his sore chest and middle in the process. "He only wants to kill things. I say we drag him to the gate and cut him free before we go home."

Teyla's face tightened. "Despite what Dr. McKay says," she said pointedly. "We might be able to help you if you tell us what happened."

"The Wraith came. I thought we were protected by the virus that had passed to us from our food. Wraith have come before and tried to cull us, but failed after many of their number died."

"What happened this time?" John asked.

Rodney felt apprehension building inside even beyond the pain he was in from the beating.

"They came, but did not take any. Instead, their ships flew over while releasing something into the air. It did not smell or do anything to the crops. But after a couple of days people started to get sick." He swallowed and looked at Ronon nervously, then his eyes darted to John and Teyla crowding around him, then finally he looked at Rodney's bruised and swaying form.

He looked away and continued, "Only those with the Wraith killing disease were sick. After a few days, there was nothing our healers could do - they all died."

Teyla drew in a breath and John's jaw tensed. Rodney started to feel sick.

The man closed his eyes. "Then the Wraith came and culled the survivors. No one was spared. Men, women and… even the children."

"How did you survive then?" Rodney asked.

"I was offworld looking for help and when I came back... oh, it was horrible, so many dead! My wife and my son." He closed his eyes as tears flowed down his face. "He was only two harvests old."

Teyla moved closer and rested her hand on his shoulder. "I am sorry for your loss."

"Cut him free, Ronon," John said.

"What?" Rodney asked in shock. "He's completely wild - he tried to kill me!"

John turned back to Ronon and the Satedan said, "Don't worry. I'll shoot him again if he tries anything."

"What is your name?" Teyla asked.

"Teelir."

"You may come with us and we will find you a better place to live than this place of death."

He stood up and rubbed his bruised wrists from where he had strained against Ronon's unbreakable bonds.

Teyla, John and Rodney moved away to confer in the corner. Teyla said, "This is troubling news indeed if the Wraith have found a way to counteract the Hoffan virus. It was our only wide scale defence against them."

John nodded. "Let's get back to Atlantis and get Rodney seen to."

Rodney was grimacing and looking down at the floor, holding himself stiffly to avoid moving his smarting bruises any more than he had to. He swallowed down the bile as his stomach churned after its unpleasant and incredibly painful pounding. That he did not complain when the others talked about him while he was standing right there was enough for them to know how badly he was hurting.

They took Teelir back to the gate and to Atlantis so that he could tell his story in more detail after a good clean up, medical check over and hot meal.

Rodney was extremely grouchy by then. The infirmary staff stripped, scanned and poked him where it hurt and he yelled at them angrily. "Of course it hurts! You don't need to press it!"

They cleaned the grazing on his chest and lightly bandaged it. He was given painkillers and discharged with the warning not to overexert himself for the next week while the bruises healed. He grumbled as the duty doctor dispensed his drugs and advice, then walked away, with his upper body curled against the pain and his shoulders hunched.


	8. The Shadow of Oblivion

"Why don't we change a few things now that we have a time travelling Jumper?" John asked Rodney after they left Teelir's briefing.

Teyla had agreed on behalf of the Athosians that they would take the sole survivor of Lanaria's cull in as he had lost everything. But he was to be allowed to stay on Atlantis until he had received adequate care for his malnutrition.

"I don't know, Sheppard," Rodney said. "It's not really something we should be meddling with."

John frowned. "You did."

"Yes, but I got lucky and the alternative was for Earth to remain in oblivion and the extinction of humanity."

"What about the Wraith? We've had nothing but trouble with them the whole time we've been here."

Rodney stopped and John was forced to do the same. Rodney said, "And how do you propose we eliminate the Wraith? Go back to the dawn of time and poke at the primordial soup with a stick?"

John grimaced. "I was thinking more on the lines of something bug related. The Hoffan virus makes humans immune to feeding and eventually kills the Wraith that tried it. Could it be changed to kill Iratus bugs?"

"You're asking the wrong person," Rodney said, starting to walk again with John following.

"I'm just thinking out loud."

Rodney smirked, "Do you ever think in any other way?"

John rolled his eyes. "Have you told Woolsey about your invention yet?"

"I didn't invent it, but no, I haven't and I don't intend to." Rodney stopped again and indicated the open door to the main lab on his right. "Well, this is me. I'll see you later."

John nodded, "Yeah."

xxx

"Ten Wraith Hives bearing down on us!" Chuck shouted across the Control Room.

 _"Ten?!"_ Rodney bellowed back. "It was only six a few seconds ago!"

"More came out of hyperspace."

"Shields?" Woolsey asked, bouncing on his feet and standing well out of the way of the scientists running to and fro.

"Raised and holding. They haven't started shooting yet," Rodney said as he hammered keys on his computer.

John ran into the Gate Room at that moment, jogged up the steps and stopped in front of the scanner image on the big screen. "How did they know we were here? We've only been back for a few days!"

Rodney grunted at his screen. "No idea. We didn't see them coming either until they were right on top of us."

Chuck, who had now been displaced by the frantic scientists, frowned at the screen. "What are they doing?"

"Nothing, apparently," Rodney replied. "Even if they launch everything they have and keep going, we've got two almost fully charged ZedPMs."

"How long can we last?" Woolsey asked.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Rodney replied, wiggling his fingers at Woolsey.

 _"McKay…"_ John warned.

Rodney sighed. "I don't know, but a long time. Months, maybe even a year or more. It depends on the yield of their weapons and how long they can keep it up themselves."

John relaxed into his trademark slouching-while-standing-up pose. "Well, we just have to wait for the Daedalus, Apollo and Sun Tzu to get here and blast them."

Rodney stopped typing and looked around at the gathered people. They looked up from their screens to meet his eyes. He said, "Or we could move the city."

He did not get a response to his suggestion before Radek said, "They are launching darts."

Rodney frowned and spun back to his computer. "What's the point of that? We're behind an impenetrable shield that will last far longer than their darts can fly for."

"They are not slowing," Radek said.

"I can see that," Rodney snapped. "Oh! No no no!"

"What?" John asked.

"The shield is lowering," Radek said in a breathy voice.

"Explain," Woolsey said.

Rodney's eyes darted from side to side and his face paled. "I don't know! The controls aren't responding!"

"Get those shields up, McKay!" John hit his radio, "All Jumper pilots to the main bay, we've got darts on an intercept course."

John glanced at Rodney, who briefly looked up and nodded his acknowledgement. There was no time for long drawn out good lucks or even goodbyes if it came to that. Then John was gone and it was just Rodney and his scientists against the strangely malfunctioning shield.

"It's a virus," Rodney said. "It was invisible until it activated a minute ago to lower the shield."

"A Wraith virus," Radek concurred. "It has infected many primary systems – the shield, weapons systems and engines. We could not leave even if we wanted to."

"Not that we'd get very far without shields," Rodney said in a high voice.

"How did it get here?" Woolsey asked.

"It doesn't matter now. It's going to take time to remove it. Probably longer than we have," Rodney said while his fingers flew across the keys and the sound of typing filled the control room like rain in a thunderstorm.

"They're firing," Chuck called.

Several windows blew out in the Gate Room and showered the people present with glass. The Control Tower shook to its watery foundations.

"Gentlemen?" Woolsey asked once he had recovered and straightened up again.

"There isn't any time!" Rodney cried. "Hundreds of Wraith are beaming from the darts onto the balconies and piers. We won't be able to survive them all."

Rodney sighed, but there was no solution to this – the Wraith would kill them all and take Atlantis, but worse than that – the Wraith would have a way to get to Earth. "I suggest evacuation and we set the self destruct."

"You are all going to die!" A voice shouted from down in the gate room.

"What the…?" Woolsey said and went over to the railing.

"The Wraith will spare my world, but your city is theirs!"

"It's Teelir," Rodney said with a deep frown. "Didn't we get rid of him yet?"

"He was staying here for medical care," Woolsey said.

The man ran up the stairs despite the marines that tried to tackle him. He shouted, "What is a hundred lives or however many there are here, weighed against two thousand?"

"I thought they culled your planet already?" Radek said.

Teelir shook his head. "No. But mine is next. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"Didn't we check him?" Woolsey asked.

Rodney furrowed his brow. "Keller would've done. But the Wraith technology is organic – whatever he had must have been very well hidden."

"But you'll die too," Woolsey said.

Teelir bowed his head. "It is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

"You're an idiot," Rodney said through his teeth.

"The Wraith soldiers have breached the Central Tower," Radek said.

"Shut down the transporters!" Woolsey said.

"Oh please, already done," Rodney said. "Our people are using the stairs and will be here soon so that they can get out of the city."

Another volley of dart fire slammed into the control tower and it shook. Rodney said, "They won't destroy us. They need the city as much as we do."

"We need options and we need shields, right now," Woolsey said.

"One thing at a time!" Rodney responded. "We're working as fast as we can, but this isn't a home PC with anti virus software – we have to work through the code line by line to remove the corruption, but it's multiplying, spreading and hiding like the virus we encountered before."

"How long?"

"It's a complete mess, so weeks, possibly longer," Rodney conceded.

"You've got minutes!" Woolsey said.

Rodney narrowed his eyes. "I know."

xxx

John flew the Jumper out of the bay and into the storm of the Wraith dart attack going on all around Atlantis. He knew the moment he saw it that his mission was hopeless at best. Fifteen Puddle Jumpers flew from the bay and soon there were explosions as the darts weapon's fire moved away from bombarding the city and towards the incoming defenders.

John swerved and rolled his Jumper with a thought and was grateful for inertial dampeners that he was not crushed into the seat. But as always, it was strange not to have a helmet and face mask on during combat or to be strapped down tightly in the seat as he had been before he had found out about the Stargate programme.

An explosion nearby caused him to study the HUD more closely and he gritted his teeth as he watched another Jumper get hit so hard by multiple shots that its shield gave out and it became no more than a ball of flame falling from the sky.

John fired his drones and blew away some darts, but it was a drop in the ocean and the darts were essentially infinite against his six precious drones. "We can't win this," he said to himself. "But maybe there's still a way."

He watched helplessly as another Jumper and its occupant died in flames.

John scanned the city and saw the advance of the hundred or so Wraith ground troops that had been beamed onto the piers. They were already in the central tower and it would not be much longer before the city was lost completely. He tapped his radio. "Sheppard to infirmary."

"This is Keller. We're a little busy evacuating at the moment, Colonel."

"I know, carry on. I was just wondering if the device we spoke about is ready?" John rolled the Jumper again as three darts chased him. He dove towards the water and slowed to allow it to go under the sea. The water dissipated the dart weapons and he was saved. He sighed in relief.

"Yes, it's ready, but it doesn't kill Wraith, only Iratus bugs. That's what you requested, right?"

"That's perfect. I'm going to fly in and pick it up."

"But there aren't any windows or balconies near here," Jennifer said. John could just make out the sound of clattering and shouting behind her as they worked.

"I know. Let me know when you're all clear."

There was the sound of muffled gunfire over the radio and John tensed up. "Dr. Keller?"

The line went dead.

John studied the HUD which was easier to see against the black of the deep depths of treacherous water below him, but at least he was safe from the darts and Hives. He had to get to the infirmary and then to Rodney's quarters to grab the time travel device. But the Wraith had now reached the infirmary level. He hoped the infirmary staff had escaped alright.

John tapped the comm again, "Sheppard to all Jumpers. Return to Atlantis and join the evacuation."

Lorne replied, "What will you be doing, sir?"

"I've got another plan."

There was a pause, then Lorne replied, "Understood."

John smiled - Lorne was used to his crazy schemes and probably already knew that whatever John was planning was either suicidal or a long shot or both. "Sheppard to infirmary. If there are any humans still there, you've got about one minute to get out before I shoot this drone."

He watched the HUD, but the front of the wave of advancing Wraith was already beyond the infirmary. If they had not left by now, they were already dead. John grimaced.

John waited until the surviving Puddle Jumpers were all safely back in Atlantis then flew out of the water towards his target. He used his dodging skills and razor sharp thought manoeuvres to zip around the darts that came for him. He shot the drone out and watched it slam into the side of the tower right near the infirmary.

It created a nice hole bigger than a Jumper hatch and John spun the ship round as he approached. It did not have to be pretty, but as long as the Jumper flew afterwards, it should work. He grabbed two P90s and shoved another handgun in the front of his vest to complement the one he had in his thigh holster. All he needed was a bandana to complete the image of the one man killing machine and he would be all set. He ran from the rear hatch with the P90s leading the way.

The corridor was full of debris and smoke and the acrid smell of the recent explosion. There were bodies strewn about, but they were all Wraith and John was grateful for that. He saw the first live Wraith as he approached the entrance to the infirmary. He shot them with the left hand P90 and kept running - one stun blast was all it would take and this would all be over.

As he ran into the infirmary, he found unidentifiable bodies on the floor. They had been human judging by the uniforms they wore, but they were so drained it was impossible to tell if they were male or female, let alone who they were. John ran past them, popping bullets into more unsuspecting Wraith that jumped out at him as he went. He tossed the left hand P90 as the clip emptied. He found the device he had asked Jennifer to work on safely in the corner of her lab. He reloaded his P90. The device was small - about the size of a large vase and cylindrical. He tucked it under his arm and ran back to the Jumper and placed it inside the rear compartment.

Rodney's quarters were a level below and John grimaced as he grabbed another P90 from the supply net. "One down, one to go." It was unlikely he would make it through the main corridor, but he didn't have a choice, as he didn't know the layout of the ventilation ducts. He ran the gauntlet again, shooting Wraith as he went and rolling out of the way of an incoming stun bolt.

Down the stairs, he breathed heavily as he finished the clip in his left hand P90 and continued to fire with the one in his right hand. He threw the spent gun towards the Wraith in front of him on the stairwell and it stumbled enough for him to shoot it in the chest until it fell and did not get up again.

The corridor was not as busy as the stairwell - there were no people left here for the Wraith to cull. John only came across two drones which were easily dispatched. He bridged the crystals to Rodney's quarters and ran inside.

"Device. Device," he said out loud, hoping it would respond and fly to him. He huffed. There was so little time left now. "If I were McKay, where would I hide an illegitimate time travel device?"

He went for the desk, then under the bed, then behind the bed. He went to the wardrobe last and dug around in the top, then eyed the pile of garishly patterned boxers, socks and shoes at the bottom. He steeled himself and dug through them. The softness of the cloth gave way to something harder. "Ah ha!"

He pulled the device out and smiled because Rodney had bundled it up complete with its leads and a tablet computer. "The full package." He tucked it under his left arm as he had done with the cylinder from the infirmary and ran back to the Jumper. He had finished his P90 and one of his handguns by the time he sealed the hatch and thumped down into the pilot's seat, sweating and panting in exertion and adrenaline.

He flew the Jumper away from the tower, scraping it along the sides of the damaged walls, then up and up into the dart filled sky overhead as he aimed it for the hangar far above.

xxx

John ran into the Control Room and glanced down briefly to see many people rushing through the active gate with as much gear as they could carry. "The Alpha Site?" John asked Rodney who was sitting with Radek at the computer terminal next to the DHD. Woolsey was down in the Gate Room directing the flow of traffic.

"Hmm, yes," Rodney said. "The last of them are going through now."

"Go with them, Radek," John said.

"But I can stay here..."

John shook his head. "No. I have a different mission for Rodney."

Radek looked sad. "I do not understand."

"Help the survivors at the Alpha site," John insisted.

Rodney frowned at John. "A different mission?"

"I'll explain later. Is the self destruct armed?"

"Yes," Rodney said sadly. His face was pale but emotionless – he was a man who seemed already broken by the events unfolding around them. John hadn't even had a moment to stop and think yet, but when he did, he knew things would hit him hard.

"The Wraith are two levels down and getting closer by the second. The ZedPMs are going to overload and obliterate the city in less than three minutes."

"Good luck, Rodney. Colonel," Radek said as he bundled up his computer. "I will see you on the other side, yes?"

"Of course," John said sincerely. He was not lying after all, even if 'the other side' had a different meaning to the one he knew Radek was thinking about.

"Have you seen Teyla or Ronon?" John asked.

"No, but I've been kind of busy trying to crack this impossible Wraith virus."

John tapped his radio, "Sheppard to Teyla. Ronon, come in." There was no response and John did not like the sinking feeling in his gut at the implications of that.

"They're probably at the Alpha Site already," Rodney said.

"That's very optimistic, Rodney."

He shrugged. "Well, I change when faced with my own certain death. Would you rather I said that they're probably dead already?"

"Not really."

"I know this sounds really corny," John said, holding out his hand. "But… come with me if you want to live."

"To where, exactly? We're surrounded by Wraith and the city is lost!" He scrubbed a hand across his forehead, leaving a red trail in the pale flesh. "I failed! All that knowledge and history… lost!"

John grimaced. "The question you should be asking is not where, but when? Things don't have to be this way."

Rodney frowned for a moment then realisation dawned. "But the device is in my quarters, levels below with an army of Wraith between us and it."

"Nope. I went and got it when I realised we couldn't win this. I also asked Keller to make the Hoffan virus kill Iratus bugs, but she said that it already does, so we've got one Iratus bug doomsday device loaded on board and ready to go."

Rodney gave him a small smile, maybe they could win this after all, but not in the current timeline. He typed on his computer. "I'll download all the data in the Ancient database about the Iratus bugs and creation of the Wraith. I just hope there's enough here to pinpoint an exact date."

"Well, we won't be short on time very soon," John said with a smirk of his own.

"The self destruct is set and the last few people are evacuating to the Alpha Site. They took the Earth control crystal with them so the Wraith can't dial it and we've not got the location or gate address written down anywhere anyway. The city will be reduced to dust in the explosion of two ZedPMs, so no matter what happens, we'll win this."

Woolsey was the last to go through and Rodney shut down the gate, just as Wraith started to swarm into the Gate Room. "Quickly!" John urged.

Rodney grabbed his computer and ran ahead of John as the Colonel shot the last few bullets from his one remaining hand gun into the approaching Wraith.

xxx

John flew the Jumper up off the floor in the bay and dialled the Iratus bug planet. Rodney frowned down at his computer. "What the hell happened to this ship? There are scrapes along the hull and one of the drive pods won't fully retract."

"Should we go back and get another one?" John asked as the Jumper lowered into the gate room.

"It's too late now - the bay is already full of Wraith," Rodney said.

"Is it space proof and will it fly?"

"Yes."

"Too late anyway," John said as the autopilot propelled the Jumper forwards and they went through the gate.

The gate shut down behind them as the Wraith took their places in the control room. The commander with them snarled as he saw the large countdown on the screen in front of him.

3… 2… 1…

The two fully charged ZPMs glowed brightly in their housing, burning through the circuits around them in their glory. The ball of dazzling light spread out through corridors and walls as it engulfed the City of the Ancients. The planet of New Lantea was bathed in the glow of two exploding ZPMs as the towers of Atlantis turned to superheated dust in the resulting shockwave and the sea surrounding the once great city-ship boiled away.

The ten Hives above the planet screamed in unison as all minds were turned towards the planet below as their prize was lost. They were hungry and the Pegasus Galaxy was short on food. They had just lost their only hope of a large enough food source to sustain them and their cries were so loud and widespread that they shivered through all the Wraith Hives in the Galaxy.


	9. Bug Hunt

The solitary Puddle Jumper flew through the void of space above the sweeping planet below. The myriad shades of blue, brown and green covered by white fluffy clouds belied the horror of the creatures lurking on the surface.

"I can't believe it's gone," John said with a pale face as he gripped the controls.

Rodney furrowed his brow. He felt the same way, but he had already witnessed the destruction of Earth and the culling of humanity to its twilight, so his insides were merely numb rather than shocked or sad. He turned to Sheppard, "Go back and dial the gate."

John frowned, "What for? The city's destroyed."

"I have to be sure, just in case something goes wrong with our planned trip to yesterday."

John was still looking doubtful, but did as Rodney asked. As they approached the space gate hovering before them, he dialled the familiar address on the DHD.

Home, Rodney's mind supplied and his heart swooped as emotions started to course through him. He held his breath.

"No connection," John said.

"Try it again," Rodney blurted.

John raised his eyebrows, but turned the Jumper for a second pass. He dialled it and again it did not connect.

Rodney let out the breath he had been holding. There was no safe bastion in this Galaxy now. After five long years, the Wraith had finally won and the Pegasus Galaxy no longer had anyone to save it. "Do you think the IOA would let us stay if this doesn't work?" John asked.

"It'll work!" Rodney said, with more conviction than he felt. He tapped his computer. "I'm going to analyse this data. Any time before the Ancients arrived on this planet should be sufficient."

"Primordial soup?"

"Not that far," Rodney said. "Besides, the virus wouldn't work on that. Or if it did, it might change more than we intend."

John sighed as he set the Jumper in geostationary orbit and powered it down to conserve energy.

"How much food and water do we have?" Rodney asked as his stomach grumbled.

"Not a lot, but you said this wouldn't take long."

"I hope it doesn't, but the Ancients weren't exactly the best at keeping clear and detailed records." Rodney stopped reading and looked up. "When you say 'not a lot' is that military parlance for 'none at all?'"

"Keep working, McKay."

Rodney swallowed nervously as his eyes widened.

John went into the rear compartment and grabbed the precious canister of Iratus Bug killing virus. "I have no problem with the goal of this mission," he said with a grimace. "The more bugs we kill, the better." He brought the canister into the cockpit and placed it on Ronon's empty chair behind Rodney. He rubbed his neck unconsciously as he sat down.

"Ah ha," Rodney said. "The first entry in the database that mentions this planet is here. So if we set the time travel co-ordinates for a time, say, five thousand years before this date, we should be alright."

"Five _thousand_ years?" John drawled.

"Just to be sure. Any sooner and we might meet the Ancients or something."

"And that's a bad thing because...?"

Rodney shrugged. "The less they know about our meddling, the better."

"Oh, I'm sure they know alright."

Rodney paused in his typing to look up at John with wide, frightened eyes. "Divine intervention?"

"I really hope not. Their rule is not to intervene in any event, right?"

"I doubt they can see into the past or catch us before they started ascending," Rodney said.

"I don't know - they can do some pretty amazing things."

Rodney scowled. "You spent six months with some meditating bell chimers! I don't think you know that much about ascension or ascended powers." He lifted his chin. "I, on the other hand, did ascend once."

"For a microsecond."

Rodney deflated. "Still..." He resumed typing, "Anyway. I'll go and plug the time travelling device into the Jumper and let's get out of this wrecked timeline."

"Two and counting, right?" John jabbed.

Rodney held up his finger, "Don't even. No." His eyes tightened. "I've lived an extra five years of hell in what has only been a few months to you."

"Let's hope this is the last time we need to do this. Just imagine a Pegasus Galaxy without Wraith! What kind of technology would the Ancients have created? How advanced would all the natives be to be free from the Wraith cullings?"

"We'll find out soon," Rodney said as his hands worked the cables into place with practised ease. He barely even had to check the schematic on the computer John had rescued, but he did anyway to be sure. He did not want to destroy a solar system again or the whole universe either with a paradoxical vortex explosion sucking in space-time. He had killed a few people and a few creatures in his life, some by accident and others for survival, but he did not fancy being the one to kill all life in existence because in his haste he had plugged the hyperlight cable into the engine output.

"All set," he said as he went into the cockpit and thumped down in the co-pilot's chair. "Time co-ordinates locked and ready."

"This doesn't hurt or anything does it?" John asked sceptically.

"Sure. It's like your eyeballs are boiling and your skin is being peeled off by an enthusiastic badger."

John shot a narrow eyed look at Rodney. "McKay...." he drawled.

"No. But let's just hope we don't end up before the big bang or a billion years in the future or something."

"Not if you plugged it in properly," John said, sounding a little nervous now.

"Would you like to do the honours?" Rodney asked, waving the tablet computer screen in John's direction with the large 'Engage' button in the middle of it.

"That's really Star Trek, McKay..." he said with a smile as he leant over and pressed the shiny button on the screen. It beeped and then they were sucked out of normal time and into the hyperlight of the time travel vortex.

xxx

An hour later and even John was starting to get bored with the lights flashing and zipping past them through the windscreen. It had been fun and amazing at first, but now the wisps of light were making him feel slightly sick. Rodney had occupied himself with the canister and calculating the best altitude at which to drop it in the atmosphere to ensure total planetary dispersal.

"Are you sure there's enough in there to cover the whole planet?" John asked as he eyed the innocuous looking and rather small device.

"What? Yes, of course. I designed it, but I need to get this right, or the virus will never reach the ground or will float off harmlessly into space."

"I told Keller to make it contagious and airborne."

"Well, it's already airborne. That Wraith Hive was converted into humans using a similar virus. As the Iratus bugs are comprised entirely of the parts of those Wraith we wanted to eliminate, it will completely kill them."

John smiled. "I have no problem with that."

Rodney shuddered. "Me neither."

The light display out of the windscreen suddenly gave way to black space. It was so dark out of the window compared to what had just been flashing in John's eyes, that it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and for the stars to become visible. He brought up the HUD and began scanning the planet below that looked almost identical to the one they had been above only moments before. He did not remember the exact position of the clouds and storms, but they would have changed in an hour anyway.

"At least the planet is still there," John said. "Rules out the billions of years idea."

"Not necessarily," Rodney said distractedly as he analysed some data on his computer.

"So, when are we?"

"Working on it," Rodney snapped.

John sighed and went back to staring out of the window.

After a few minutes, Rodney said, "There's no gate on the surface - that's a good sign. The tectonic activity has caused the continents to shift considerably since we were last here. Some are noticeably closer together, further apart, smaller and larger."  
"Is this good enough?"

Rodney nodded. "I'm sixty percent certain."

"Only sixty? What did you do, program it to send us around about fifteen thousand years into the past, give or take a few thousand?"

Rodney scowled. "Yes, and I told it to send us to the ice cream planet."

"Cool."

"We need to go down there and, uh, check for bugs."

John's face turned a slightly green shade. "Can't we scan from orbit?"

"Have you seen the life signs readings? It's like the entire surface is crawling with things: small things and big things, or at least lots of things so close together they look like dinosaurs or whales flopping around on the land. Don't even get me started about what's in the sea down there."

John tilted the nose of the Jumper down and powered up the engines. "Alright, one bug hunt coming up. I'll head for the nearest dark, damp cave."

"And wear a neck collar," Rodney jabbed.

John's face darkened and he swallowed as he rubbed at his neck again.

xxx

John landed the Jumper close to the large network of caves Rodney had found on the sensors during his low flyby.

"Are there any strange pathogens or microbes out there?" Rodney asked as John guided the Jumper into a clearing near the cave.

"You're only asking this now?" John drawled. "You're the one who's been loudly analysing sensor data for the past couple of hours."

"I've been hunting for bugs to kill."

John sighed and brought up the HUD. "The readout is negative."

"But we're here before the Ancients arrived. Maybe they didn't have all known prehistoric pathogens in their database."

"Or it's completely safe!"

Rodney gulped and his eyes darted around at the leafy plants now filling the view through the window. The Jumper thumped down, the inertial dampeners taking the strain so that neither occupant was jolted by the impact. John went into the rear compartment and grabbed a spare tac vest. He tossed it at Rodney, then grabbed the scientist's wrist and pulled him out of the seat he seemed to be glued to.

"I wish Keller was here with us," Rodney said sadly as he pulled the vest on and adjusted it so he could zip it up around his slightly podgy belly.

John did not tell Rodney what he had seen in the infirmary. It was pointless now and especially as he could not say with any certainty whether Keller had been one of the dead bodies he had seen. He laid a comforting hand on Rodney's shoulder. "I'm sure she made it off Atlantis and to the Alpha Site. But that's a few thousand years in the future now, right?"

Rodney sighed deeply and then looked up. John looked right back with intense eyes of steel. "That's why we're here, remember. We're going to fix everything."

It took a while for the sparkle to return to Rodney's eyes through the sadness and it did not fully return as it once had.

John dug through the nets, but he only found one Wraith stunner and a couple of power bars. He handed one to Rodney who tore through it in a few seconds. He kept the other one for himself, but did not eat it despite his hunger.

"What about the other one?" Rodney asked with his hand held out.

"That's for me, for later," John said, but secretly he intended to give that one to Rodney too.

Rodney frowned angrily, but then sighed. "Alright. Let's open this hatch and let the deathly diseases infect and kill us."

"As long as we deploy the virus before that happens, I'm happy," John said.

Rodney hummed and rolled his eyes as he hit the hatch release button and warm, humid air entered the Jumper.

xxx

Half an hour later and John ran from the cave like he was being chased by a cheetah. Rodney was hot on his tail and the sound of clicking and low hissing was behind them. When they reached safe ground, Rodney bent over at the waist, huffing and puffing as he got his breath back.

John recovered faster, but his face had gone an unhealthy greenish colour and his jaw muscles were tensing and relaxing as he ground his teeth. "Never again, I swore years ago."

"I know," Rodney panted. "But we had to be sure they were here or it would be pointless."

"Nasty little biters. Let's kill them all."

Rodney straightened up, red faced, but with more breath. "I'm nearly done with the altitude calculation."

Minutes later and Jumper left the ground far below, as it shot upwards at top speed.

Rodney glanced out of the window. "Good thing we have inertial dampeners, or I think I'd be a puddle of goo on the rear hatch door by now."

"Horrible. Just, uhg," John eloquently uttered.

Rodney grabbed the canister and ran one final diagnostic on it before he placed it against the hatch in the rear compartment. He checked the gear in the webbing was secure and the time travel device was clipped to the deck plating - he did not like the prospect of spending the rest of his life on the forsaken critter infested planet below. He did not want to eat roast bug as a staple and he doubted very much that John's taste buds or sensibilities would be able to cope with even the prospect of that scenario if he screwed up - more likely that John would want to eat Rodney burgers instead.

Rodney sealed the central bulkhead and sat down. "Two thousand more metres to go before we're at optimal release altitude."

John brought up the HUD and a large number display for altitude rapidly tickered up on it.

"That'll do," Rodney said.

John levelled off the Jumper. "I thought you just spent half a day working out the exact altitude?!"

"Yes, but there's a range. Opening the rear hatch."

There was a quiet whoosh and then a slight thumping reverberation that shuddered through the frame of the ship and into John's mind.

Rodney jumped up and opened the middle bulkhead. "It's gone!" He shouted in triumph. He pressed a few things on his tablet screen. "Deploying."

John scanned on the HUD for the tiny canister and found it falling down towards the surface far below. He checked the reading to scan for the virus and found it spreading out in the upper atmosphere. "Now all we have to do is wait," he said as he sat back and watched with some satisfaction as the bug killing cloud dispersed in the atmosphere.

"Some fifteen thousand years? I'm not sure if I could stand the tension for that long. Or we could go the quick way."

John flew the ship up higher until they reached space. "We don't have any more food anyway."

Rodney's face paled and he held out his right hand with the palm pointing down towards the deck. "Can you see that?" He asked with wide eyes. "My hands are already shaking! What are you going to do when I pass out?"

John glanced over briefly and narrowed his eyes. "I can't see anything. Anyway, you can use the shaking to type faster, right?"

"All the wrong buttons," Rodney grumbled. "If I want sympathy I'll talk to my computer."

John retrieved the warm and slightly crushed final power bar from his tac vest and tossed it at Rodney. It landed in his lap and he squeaked in excitement. "I knew you were hiding that somewhere!"

"You're welcome," John said with a smirk. He spun the Jumper over once they reached space so that they could look down at the unassuming bug haven, soon to be bug extinct planet below.

"We're all set to go," Rodney said.

"Back to the future."

Rodney grimaced and pressed the button on the screen and once more they were pulled into hyperlight and left the blackness of star strewn space and the time where they had been far behind them.

"So, what kind of future do you think we're heading for?" John asked.

Rodney chomped up the powerbar and spoke through a mouthful of peanut butter. "I don't care. Anything has got to be better than the place we left, right? I mean, there would be a power void without the Wraith, but maybe the Ancients helped out the humans more."

"Spaceships and supertech," John said.

Rodney's eyes glazed over and he stopped chewing halfway through his mouthful. After a few seconds, he returned to awareness and swallowed with a sigh. "I can't wait to find out."


	10. The Second Divergence

The hour that they spent in hyperlight on the way back to their time felt far longer to Rodney than the hour it had taken to go back in time. His excitement levels built with every passing minute. He had tried counting the red streaks that passed them in the multicoloured time vortex they were flying through at a speed of fifteen thousand years an hour, but he had lost count at three hundred when John had started gabbling about hoverboards and flying cars.

"Oh, please, we want _real_ advanced technology. Imagine having Wormhole Drive in every spaceship. Complete peace and harmony. Ancients who haven't yet ascended. Maybe ascended Ancients that can step down from their lofty heights and actually help out for a change instead of watching everyone suffering."  
John smiled. "How much longer?"

"Just a few seconds, but it's not an exact science, nor is it exactly safety tested."

John's face paled. "Well, we're nearly there now."

Rodney nodded as the hyperlight wobbled a little in front of them.

"What was that?" John asked in alarm.

Rodney checked his computer, but he may as well have been reading the display upside down for all the good it did. The data made no sense and he did not even know where to begin in trying to decipher it. "No idea."

The wobble happened again, but this time it was more like an earthquake and both men were nearly thrown from their seats. "Tell me you felt that?!" John yelled.

"Yes! And, no, I don't know what it is!"

"Well, _fix_ it!"

Rodney's guts twisted up inside him - he had no idea what was happening. "It's probably just the timeline adjusting to what we did," he supplied.

John continued to grip the control sticks tightly.

"That won't help. The time travel device has us now. We can only move in time, not space and there's no aborting it."

"I know," John said slowly. "But it helps a little."

Rodney hugged his useless, betraying computer to his chest - he knew exactly what John meant.

There was a larger jerk and Rodney was crushed back in his seat, then thrown side to side. He dropped his computer so that he could hold the armrests. Obviously time travelling inertial dampeners weren't a part of the package the device offered. Nearly there. Nearly there, his mind chanted back at him. Not much longer.

The vortex around them darkened as it had done prior to their last sojourn through time and Rodney sighed in relief - they would be home soon.

Rodney was caught unawares when he was slammed back into his seat again, so hard that his breath left him and his vision greyed. Then something felt like it was grabbing him. The force pressed in around his whole body and he was wrenched from the seat. The Jumper and the hyperlight vortex faded all around him. "John?!" he called once he was able to suck in enough breath, but his voice was quiet and echoed back at him unnervingly.

The greyness of his vision swam, then began to go away as it was replaced with white. He was standing up and the pressure also started to fade until he could breathe again.

A voice shouted at him through the fog, "Get down, McKay!"

He felt a sharp tug at the base of his neck and he found himself landing heavily on his knees. He blinked a few times in a daze as his eyes focused on the blurry figure sitting opposite him.

"Ford?" Rodney asked with a frown.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" the young lieutenant asked angrily.

"But you're dead."

Ford frowned. "Not yet, but if you pull another crazy stunt like that we all will be. The Satedans will see you and come running."

Rodney's heart rate - already high from the shock of being torn from the Jumper and dumped onto some random planet - sped up even further. "Satedans?"

Ford moved his P90 round so that he could sit instead of crouch. He leant in and spoke quietly, "Have you got battlefield psych trauma or something, Tech, or did you get amnesia from that last campaign?"

"Neither," Rodney said. As he began to breathe more normally, he noticed some aches and pains coursing through him that he had never felt before. He narrowed his eyes at Ford and studied him closely. There was no sparkle of youth in his eyes any more as Rodney remembered from all those years ago when he had last seen the man. There were no smiles and no jokes. A nasty looking scar ran across his cheek, from his ear down to his mouth. It was a clean line and Rodney was brutally reminded of Ronon's sword.

"Why are we fighting Satedans?" Rodney asked.

"This isn't the best place to lose your mind, McKay," Ford said as he took his eyes off Rodney and started to scan their surroundings. "They've overrun the Gamma Site and intend to make it all the way to the Alpha Site. If they do that, we'll never get Atlantis back."

Rodney breathed a sigh of relief. Atlantis had not been destroyed in this reality, but he was not sure he liked the idea of killing Satedans. Then his mind clicked - from the little that Ronon had spoken of his homeworld and the visit they had made to the ravaged and culled remains of Sateda, Rodney had noted that their world seemed highly populated and close in technology to how Earth had been only a few years ago. So if the Wraith had never culled such a world, it was understandable that they would have risen to become a superpower in the Pegasus Galaxy.

"Remind me who took Atlantis again, I think I've got battlefield amnesia," Rodney said as convincingly as he could, but ending up sounding insincere and moronic like he accused his scientists.

"The Athosian Empire."

"Oh." Rodney winced as a humming current of pain ran down his side from his armpit to his hip. "Ow."

"We're nearly at the gate, then we can leave this planet and go home."

Home was not Atlantis, Rodney realised with a deep internal sigh. But it would be. The sky was completely veiled by endless white cloud and a cool breeze rolled over the muddy mound they were hiding behind, ruffling Rodney's hair. There were few trees in the distance, and larger hills that gave way to the mountains beyond them.

Rodney chewed his lip and tried not to whimper at the pain his body was producing. He had taken over himself in this timeline as he had done before. At least he was not dead, he mused, and quickly shoved that thought aside. "What about the Genii?" Rodney asked, dreading the answer as images of knives and Kolya floated to the forefront of his mind.

"They're part of the Athosian Empire."

"Oh, of course."

"Do you know which platoon Sheppard is with?"

Ford took his eyes away from scanning for hostiles to narrow them at Rodney. "Major Sheppard is back at the Alpha Site. At least he was the last time I checked the roster."

"That was a day ago, right?"

"Two weeks we've been stuck in this hellhole trying to get back to the gate. I'm not surprised you've lost the few marbles you had left, Tech McKay."

"Tech?" Rodney snorted. "That's _Doctor_ McKay to you, soldier boy."

"No, it's not. Well, it might have been once, but that was before we got involved in this endless, pointless war."

Rodney tapped his tac vest and brought out the life signs detector in his pocket.

"Anything?" Ford asked.

"Plenty," Rodney replied shortly. "Including multiple life signs heading this way."

"Friendly?"

"I don't know."

Ford's grip tightened on his gun and he peeked around the edge of the mud pile they were behind. There were two loud bangs close at hand that made Rodney jump. "Definitely no friends of ours," Ford said in a long suffering voice. "I say we run for the gate and shoot anything that gets in our way."

"And die horrible, painful, bullet ridden deaths? That's not a good plan in any way."

"We're pinned down and two of us can't defeat a whole army of Sats."

"I know."

Ford moved from a sitting position into a crouch and fired a few single shots from his P90. The gun itself was chipped and some of the black had flaked away, either that or the mud had obscured the original colour. It was the most battle worn P90 Rodney had ever seen and Ford wielded it as though it was an extension of his own body and just as precious. Rodney also had a P90 weighing against his sore chest and he grasped it in sweaty, trembling hands as he prepared to do what Ford had just done. One man killing machine or not, he could not take out all the lives Rodney had seen on the scanner. If that happened, Rodney would be alone and stranded without any clue as to the address of the Alpha Site and to John - his only friend who also knew nothing about this strange timeline where they had ended up.

Rodney gripped his P90 tightly and gritted his teeth as he spun around the mud he was hiding behind. He popped off a couple of shots before a return volley had him flattened behind the cover again. His hands were shaking so badly he could hardly hold his gun and his heart was slamming in his chest so hard that his whole body was vibrating with each thumping beat.

"We're going to have to make a break for it," Ford said next to him. "There are more troops near the gate, but we need to reach them, then we'll be safe."

Rodney snorted and hiccupped. "Safe? There's nothing safe about that field full of gun wielding maniacs we have to run through!"

"Get a grip, McKay, and let's go."

Ford ran around the hill and Rodney did too. Both men fired their P90s constantly at the advancing Satedan forces and had them ducking behind cover. They reached the tree line ahead and hid behind sturdy trunks as an answering volley of bullets hit the wood, chipped and splintered it. Rodney's ears rang and he smelt gunpowder and burning along with freshly cut wood. He grimaced as his hands slipped around the gun.

His belly felt smoother, harder, flatter and his breaths came easily while he ran. His body was fitter in this timeline, but his mind was in turmoil.

Ford was waving his hands at Rodney, pointing at his eyes and then ahead of them the way they needed to go to get to safety. Rodney never really paid much attention to the strange sign language the military used, but even a moron knew that there were loads of bad guys all around them in the trees. Rodney could probably pinpoint the exact locations of each of them if he took the time to study the bullet hole angles in his rapidly diminishing cover tree.

Aiden sighed when Rodney eyed him in confusion and whispered. "Again, break left and I'll go right."

"Um. Okay," Rodney said back, sounding less than convinced. They were both going to die very soon - of that he was certain. He hoped John fared better than he did or found a way to fix things and end the war.

Ford ran and Rodney tensed for a moment and took a deep breath before he left cover and ran the other way. Apparently Rodney was a soldier in this timeline.

The nasty sound of splintering wood came all around Rodney as he ran, his breaths were not really giving him enough air as his legs worked. He had stopped trembling a while ago and now he expected for the next bullets to splinter his bones instead of wood. He wondered how much it would hurt to be left in a ditch to bleed out and die from horrible injuries. He wondered exactly what the hell they were doing on this planet in the first place or if it was worth fighting for.

An inconveniently placed tree root grabbed Rodney's ankle and he was sent sprawling at high speed as bullets whizzed all around him, the heat of them singed his forehead and back as he fell. The breath was completely knocked out of him where he landed in the undergrowth and rolled.

For a moment he just lay there as stars filled his peripheral vision along with the light breaking through the canopy above. It looked almost normal - like it was not a planet broken by war with humans trying to kill each other under its shadowy depths. He coughed when he was finally able to suck in a breath and the light of the world around him ramped back up to normal. His chest hurt even more as he panted and tested his limbs. Everything seemed to be in working order, but the adrenaline might have been blocking out the pain of the injuries from his more than likely fractured ankle and internal bleeding.

"Oh, god. This sucks worse than the Wraith..." he muttered once he had the breath to speak.

There was a crackling of leaves nearby and he frowned and held his breath and lay very, very still. A twig snapped and Rodney jumped at the sound like it had been a gunshot. He was being hunted. Maybe they thought they had got him and were coming to check or finish him off.

Rodney saw the man before he was discovered and narrowed his eyes. He was tall and holding a large alien gun. His clothes were not the usual military attire as those from Earth would wear, but beige and brown with metal plates over the chest and on his back. He had further plates on his arms and legs, almost like a medieval suit of armour, but not completely covered, so Rodney surmised that he was a Satedan. Rodney frowned as the man drew closer and was suddenly made certain that he was Satedan.

It was Ronon.

Although his hair was shorter - hanging around his face and neat, his face was hard - even more so than Rodney had known him. Rodney was so surprised, he forgot his mortal peril as he called out, "Ronon? What are you doing here?"

Then he remembered that Satedans were out to kill them. Ronon came over to him and stood over the tree root that had made Rodney fall. Rodney did not like the look in the Satedan's eyes – it was the look he reserved his sworn enemies, the Wraith, in his timeline. Rodney had always been glad that they were both on the same side, but not in this timeline. Rodney painfully pushed himself upright, and faced the other man.

Rodney had his gun pointing up at this unfriendly version of Ronon, who he would not exactly have called his friend in his own timeline, more of an acquaintance really, but a powerful and dependable ally in any event. Rodney's mind screamed at him to shoot Ronon before he got nailed himself, but his finger would not work - it was Ronon!

Ronon raised his gun - a triple barrelled shotgun by the looks of it - and Rodney was paralysed as his wide eyes drifted towards the holes pointing at him.

There were a few shots from the right and Ronon glanced towards them.

The next thing Rodney knew there was a loud bang and it felt like he had just been hit by a bus. He flew backwards and Ronon disappeared into the trees. There was no air and he had no breath. Here we are again, he thought as he stared up at the gently swaying canopy. The smell of splintered wood and gunpowder filled his nostrils and he could smell it even without being able to breathe, but there was a new smell of metal. Perhaps it had come from that strange gun or armour plates that Ronon had had all over him?

Rodney took a breath and a cry was ripped from him as nerve endings started to report in. They were not too pleased at all with what had just transpired and Rodney was inclined to agree with them.

Rodney closed his eyes and there was a tug at the base of his neck and his vest tightened. It was so hard to breathe. The pain was even worse and he could hear a whimpering moaning sound before a hand clamped over his mouth.

"Quiet, McKay. They're hunting us."

Water leaked from Rodney's eyes and he felt like it would be preferable to curl up and die somewhere, but he felt so heavy and sluggish. "Ffffooo?" he said through the earthy tasting hand over his mouth.

The Lieutenant lifted his hand and said quietly, "Why the hell didn't you shoot him, McKay?"

"It was Ronon..." Rodney twitched and swallowed the bile threatening to choke him.

"Exactly - the leader of the Satedan military arm."

"I didn't know."

"Kill him and it would be a great victory. This dump must be important if he was here in person."

Rodney's vision was wobbling around the edges as colour faded out of the trees and the white sky turned dull grey. "Can't... breathe..." he gasped.

"Hang on."

He felt a pressure over his chest and more air was squeezed out of his lungs. Rodney must have slipped unconscious as the next moment he woke up, his breathing was a little better where his tac vest was open, but Ford was still crouching over him where he lay. "I can't believe you survived that at all, McKay."

"Gonna die?" Rodney gasped.

"Not today."

"Liar."

Ford kept his mouth shut. They waited a few more minutes then Ford said, "Any life signs nearby?"

Rodney tried to reach into his tac vest, but his arm flopped back down the moment he lifted it as a shooting pain went from his fingertips across his chest and down to his thighs. "Ow."

Ford reached into the tac vest pocket Rodney could not get to and spoke, "I used my last batch of morphine on Corporal Stuart. Shame he died, but at least he didn't feel it that much." There was a pause and a quiet patter on the ground near to Rodney's head. "Damn. That's not going to work."

Rodney turned his head, although that hurt to move. Ford was holding the case of the life signs detector while the components were now strewn about on the leafy floor. Spiders, Rodney thought and grimaced. Blood sucking ants and millipedes would eat him alive if he lay there for too long.

"We have to move," Ford said.

Rodney could not even face so much as looking at himself, let alone getting up and avoiding more bullets. His pain clouded mind knew that he had been on the receiving end of a blast from the triple barrelled shotgun so hard that it had smashed the scanner in his pocket. It had probably smashed up various vital components inside him too that would get shaken out into the undergrowth to join the scanner parts if he were to stand up.

"We're close to the gate now, McKay. But I can't carry you and shoot at the same time."

Rodney winced as tears of pain flowed down his face. He blinked them away as his eyes stung. "Leave me here to die," he found himself saying.

"No. You're a valuable asset to us and the Colonel would be annoyed if you died just because you're too lazy to get up and walk a few metres."

"Not working," Rodney said.

Ford did not like that answer and grabbed some bandages from his tac vest and pressed them against Rodney's lower abdomen. The world greyed out again and when Rodney returned to awareness, he found a foul tasting dry bandage was stuffed in his mouth - to stifle the involuntary cries he had made while Ford prepared him for movement.

"Get up, McKay," Ford ordered in a stern voice as he grabbed the handle on the back of Rodney's tac vest again. The once more very tightly zipped up tac vest that was pressing bandages and other nasty things against whatever the shotgun had done to him.

Rodney staggered upright and Ford passed him his now blood-soaked and badly chipped P90.

"Follow me," Ford said and set off at a very slow pace.

Rodney swayed and blinked down at the ground as what little blood that was left in him ran from his head and pooled in his throbbing chest. Colour faded away again and he would have fallen until a hand grabbed his and pulled his arm out. Another hand and arm worked their way across his back.

"Ford?" Rodney said as he looked to the right.

"Shut up for once, McKay. I'll get you back if it's the last thing I do and it probably will be. Shoot when I tell you to."

They took a few stumbling steps and Rodney limped gingerly beside his human walking aid. Each jarring jolt went up his legs and into his centre. It did not feel as though any part of him had not been damaged in some way by the blast from the gun he had received. With no painkillers, he had no hope either.

A few agonising minutes later and Rodney found himself unceremoniously dumped to the ground and drew his legs up towards himself where he lay curled up on his side. He wrapped his arms around his abused midsection and shook uncontrollably, which only made things worse. There was the loud noise of gunfire above him and a few thumps nearby, then a hand grabbed his and pulled him up again.

"Not much further now, McKay. I hope that stupid research post here was worth it. You'd just better remember the data you found or this was totally pointless."

Rodney's labouring heart sank. If his timeline's self had not recorded the data somewhere, then he was screwed. Not that he felt wonderful anyway and was probably going to die before they reached any form of medical care.

A voice nearby called, "Vanilla!"

"Ice cream," Ford responded.

Then they were surrounded by much friendlier people who did not fire bullets at them or chase them into the woods. Several pairs of hands grabbed Rodney and carefully lowered him down onto a stretcher on the ground. Knobbly things stuck in his back, but he could not move any more. He felt so tired and blinked sluggishly. "England," he said blearily as he eyed the red cross on white which was on the sleeve of the man kneeling beside him where he lay.

"I'm American, McKay. Not that it matters much out here."

"Oh."

"We'll have you back to the Alpha Site in a moment."

Rodney felt his vest being unzipped again and more painful pressure settled over his stomach.

"Breathe, McKay. I'm giving you some morphine."

Warmth spread through him as though a numbing blanket had just been laid over him. His tiredness increased and his eyes slid shut. The last thing he saw was the canopy overheard for the third time that day where he lay on his back, but the trees did not notice him as they carried on swaying regardless of all the death and pain and blood around them.

Kill a soldier and you remove one from the battlefield. Injure a soldier and you incapacitate two or more.

xxx

John paced up and down and frowned at the floor. This was not exactly what he had had in mind when it came to a Pegasus Galaxy without Wraith. He was locked in a cell in some concrete bunker somewhere. His careful questioning of the man opposite him who was also confined to the cells had revealed that they were at war with someone and John had done something very, very bad indeed that had landed him in the cell.

There were military emblems with English writing underneath on the walls at the end of the short run of cells. Although John did not recognise the squadrons or operations the symbols represented, he knew this was a prison run by people from Earth. He did not question the man any more or he might become suspicious of John's intentions or might think he had lost his mind.

"Do you know where Dr. Rodney McKay is, Sergeant?"

"Doctor McKay? I don't know. There's a Battlefield Tech called McKay, but I've only been here a few weeks."

John was incredulous. "That's not long at all. What did you do to get in here?"

"I found a stash of Athosian Ale and forgot to share it with the Colonel. That's enough for a good flogging around here. I'll probably spend the rest of my tour cleaning latrines."

John grimaced through his confusion. "The Colonel?"

"Not Ellis from the ship I came in on, the other guy. Sumder? Sumo?"

"Sumner?" John suggested with a grimace.

"Sure! That's the guy!"

John did not like the sound of this, but reasoned that if the Wraith were not around, then the Colonel would not have had the opportunity to be life sucked on their first mission.

"Tech McKay was shipped out to the Gamma site a couple of weeks ago. Probably before you ended up in here after your latest round of 'Ask the Colonel.'"

John swallowed, but still had no idea what he had done to get locked up like this.

"I heard you're the best pilot we have, so no wonder he hasn't demoted you or sent you back to Earth yet. With respect, Major."

John's heart sank.

"Anyway, McKay was bleating about some amazing outpost or something that could help turn the tide of war against the Athosians. A stun bomb, I think it was that would let us take Atlantis back from them."

This was getting worse and worse, John thought. His spiralling thoughts were interrupted when a door at the end of the corridor opened and the hopeful sound of chinking keys approached. A man with a grizzled face unlocked John's door. "You're free again, Major. Report to Colonel Sumner."

"Thanks," John drawled in sarcasm.

"You'd better be ready to grovel, Major. He's in a foul mood after what happened at the Gamma Site."

John grimaced again - Rodney was there if this 'Tech McKay' was the same person and based on what John had been told, he was almost certain that it was.


	11. The Alpha Site

This infirmary really sucks, Rodney thought as he lay there in the bed with nothing to take his mind off how much he was hurting. He swore they were using the lowest dosage of painkiller possible – just enough to keep him quiet, but his teeth were on edge and he thought he was going to scream. He writhed a little and moaned, twisting his hands into the bed sheets beneath him. At least in his timeline he had been given a little attention when he got hurt, but he still tried to keep his moans as quiet as possible – he was not the only one injured and probably not the most badly hurt one in the tent. He knew his blood was getting all over the sheets from what he saw in the corners of his eyes, but he still could not gather enough courage to look down and find out exactly what had happened to him.

Carson came over with a couple of nurses after Rodney felt like he had been in hell forever – so long that he had nearly zoned out. But there was no friendly spark in Carson's eyes, or any kind of jovial spark at all as he had once had in Rodney's timeline with the Wraith. Too much death and injury and endless war had stripped away the man he had known and replaced him with this husk that stood before him. Carson's once white clothes were covered in blood – from the recent triage of new arrivals from Planet Death.

He pointed the hand scanner at Rodney and tapped the screen. "Satedan shotgun rounds. They're not buried very deeply and he's not bleeding to death, prep for surgery, we're going to have to remove the shrapnel. I'll be back in a minute, Lieutenant Mather just came in with a bullet in the leg I need to see to right away."

Rodney groaned and trembled, waiting to see if he was going to die. He wondered where John was and if the Colonel had landed himself in a hell anything like Rodney's.

xxx

As John was led from the prison block out into the open air, the main thought in his mind was: why were they on the Alpha Site? How had the Athosians taken Atlantis? But if the Galaxy was full of human life and civilisations without the Wraith constantly culling worlds back to the stone age when they became too advanced, the cultures would come to pose a significant threat to the Lanteans – possibly even on a par with the Wraith.

He walked past the Stargate and was dismayed to see men coming back through the open wormhole from somewhere. A lot were covered in blood and at varying degrees of mobility - bandaged men walked and made pained noises, while silent men lay on stretchers and were quickly carried off to a large tent back the way John had come.

John approached a small tent and was ushered inside. "Good luck," the man outside said before scurrying away.

John went inside with less apprehension than he knew he should have felt had he been in the correct timeline to know what was going on. Although he knew who he was going to find in there, he still felt his gut clench. He cleared his throat as he approached the man sitting at the desk who was busily filling in forms and issuing clipped orders over the radio.

"Colonel, sir!" John said, standing at attention.

"At ease, Major," was his response.

John did so and waited. The man at the desk sighed deeply before turning around. John's heart felt like it flipped over as Sumner eyed him. The man had been dead for five years – partly by his own hand, mainly by the Wraith.

"That was a crazy stunt you pulled, Major. You're the best pilot we have, but guiding Satedan fighters that close to a sun and taking your squadron with you is not what you were ordered to do."

"No, sir," John said with feeling. Even if he had no idea what had happened.

"I only locked you in the cubes for a couple of days when I should really be sending you back to Earth on the Apollo with the others who've lost their minds out here."

John kept quiet.

Sumner sighed again. "As things are, you saved everyone and destroyed the Satedan ships while they were blinded by the sun, but that doesn't deny the fact that yours was a recon mission - strictly non combat."

"Understood."

Sumner rubbed his forehead. "It's getting hard to justify what we're doing here to those with the funds back on Earth. Unless we can get Atlantis back soon... They've given us an ultimatum. Get Atlantis back in the next month or we're all shipping home."

John frowned. "I heard there was a mission to the Gamma Site recently."

"The casualty reports are still coming in," Sumner said. He turned and grabbed a piece of paper and eyed the hand written notes on there. "Tech McKay was researching an Ancient outpost for a device hinted at in the segments of the database on Atlantis we managed to save before the invasion by the Athosians. It could turn the tide of this war and secure our paychecks for the next few years."

"I'll help," John said.

"I've decided it would be best to attack the base through the gate as the Athosian forces are too heavy in space surrounding the planet. We would lose too many and since the destruction of the Daedalus..."

John baulked.

"We can't take the city back from the air."

"The shield?"

Sumner frowned. "Shield? The Athosians are powerful, but they don't have any gene carriers that we're aware of."

John was not sure whether gene carriers were strictly needed to activate the shield. "Do you know where Tech McKay is now or if the mission was successful?"

"Not yet. That is to be your first mission after your incarceration. Locate McKay and retrieve the data he obtained. Whatever this device is, it better have been worth it - at least twenty men were killed by the Satedans."

John baulked again, harder this time and nodded, "Understood, sir. I'll get the data."

John quickly fled the tent before his knees gave out. Satedans and Athosians were the aggressors against them? What was going to happen next - the Genii as space faring pirates? John would not have put it past them.

He went to the men who had just come through the gate. It had shut down now while John had been speaking to Sumner. "Where's McKay?" he asked. If anyone would know what to do to fix things, Rodney would, John hoped.

Some of them shrugged while others ignored him. "McKay?!" he called above the heads of the men.

A man approached him. "I think he was hurt, sir. Try the medical tent," the young man pointed to a large tent.

John's heart sank. He would have no way of leaving this messed up timeline if Rodney had been too badly injured or killed. There had to be a way of eliminating the Wraith and ending the war by changing something and Rodney would know exactly how. John jogged over to the tent and wrinkled his nose. He had been around death and destruction and war and knew the smells of blood and suffering better than most, but it still turned his stomach, even though he could control his outward appearance now.

He ducked inside the tent and found personnel walking to and fro between many lines of beds. IV lines and bags of fluids hung on stands beside each one and blood splattered sheets that had once been white were stained where they covered the wounded. There were moans and shouts from the recent arrivals through the gate as the triage doctors quickly worked their way through to comfort them with drugs and tend their wounds as best they could.

John walked up the rows of beds trying to find a familiar face, but he did not recognise anyone. There was a man with his whole head bandaged, but the clipboard on the end did not say that it was not Rodney.

There was a curtain around a bed at the end of the ward and John swallowed compulsively as he approached. There was a metallic clang, then a few seconds later there was another one. John frowned as he approached. The team had not fully pulled the curtain around in their haste and John saw a pair of long tweezers buried in blood covered skin before they were pulled out with a small, round, red coloured object held between them. There was another metallic clang.

"Bloody barbarians," a familiar Scottish voice said. "Why do they have to make guns full of metal pellets like this? Isn't it enough to shoot someone? They could at least make it so they didn't have to suffer so much."

"There is one more in his shoulder, doctor," a woman said.

"Aye."

John waited and moved out of the way as a nurse rushed past him with a bucket in her hands. John had no idea where Rodney was - maybe he had not made it off the planet? Perhaps he should be searching in the morgue?

"Major Sheppard?" A man asked from behind him.

John frowned and turned around confirming his thoughts. "Ford!" John could hardly believe that it was Ford standing before him whole and almost normal. There was a hardness to his expression that John had never seen before, but at least the Wraith drug had not taken him. The dead were coming back to life in this timeline and John's emotions were on a non-stop rollercoaster.

"McKay got shot."

A lump formed in John's throat. "How badly?"

"Ronon did it. I can't believe it! McKay had a clear sightline to the Satedan, but just stood there like a prize turkey. He even had his gun pointed at the man, but didn't fire!"

John frowned - Ronon was a bad guy in this timeline. "How badly hurt is Rodney?"

"I've already reported his actions to the Colonel. McKay's always been a liability, but he's never failed like this before. He had a chance to end the war right there and then, but allowed himself to get nailed instead."

John was losing patience. "Where is he?"

"Beckett's with him now removing the pellets. I heard he'd taken at least ten in the gut, but those pellets don't go that deep - just enough to cause a slow death if you're unlucky enough to get stuck behind enemy lines for a while."

"Stow that talk, Lieutenant," Sheppard said angrily - the man behind the curtain was Rodney.

Ford looked sheepish. "Sorry, sir."

"Did you get the device?"

Ford recovered with an offer of something to talk about. "McKay had a look at it, but his computer got blown out when we were attacked by the Sats. They overrun the whole base - bullets were flying everywhere and we got split up. I managed to lead us across the field, but then McKay started acting strangely."

"Maybe he remembers something," John said.

"Better hope he lives then or the Colonel with have our heads on a platter. I think his chances are low - there was blood everywhere. I've never seen a man shot at such close range and not get killed instantly."

"Clearly you're underestimating him," John said.

Beckett spoke from behind the curtain, "The wounds are not too deep. Clean, stitch and bandage him while I go and work on Corporal Khan's injuries."

"Yes, doctor."

The curtain opened and a tired looking Carson with blood soaked clothes came out and rushed past them even as John tried to ask him how Rodney was doing. The stressed doctor broke into a run as a man down the other end of the tent started writhing on his bed as blood came through the once white bandages wrapped around his chest.

"I'm going to the full debrief the Colonel now. Catch you later," Ford said and then he was gone.

John started to get under the feet of the doctors and nurses, so he went outside the tent. He really needed to get some air that did not smell of blood or antiseptic and take stock of the madness he had landed in. Things were supposed to be perfect without the Wraith, but this time travelling was not as glamorous or quick-fixing as he had imagined it would be before they left. But even through it all, at least Atlantis was still whole and there was little threat to Earth.

He wandered around the small tent city that had been set up around the gate. There were several F302s parked in a large field at the edge of the base and he was quickly shooed away by one of the flight techs on duty. "Sorry, Major, Colonel's orders - you're grounded."

He walked back through the channels between the tents. There was an air of tension as soldiers hustled between the tents and others cleaned and checked guns. They were preparing for an assault and Rodney was the key - if he had seen this device that would turn the tide of war after they had ended up here, then they were saved. If not, then there would be no way of getting Atlantis back in this timeline. No matter how he saw things, Atlantis was to remain lost to him. He loved the city - the spires, the technology and the Puddle Jumpers, being without it made his chest tighten. He could never go back to Earth and how he had been before, not to mention the instant demotion of being in this place.

He grabbed some lunch from the mess tent, and then headed over to the medical tent to check on Rodney.

He was relieved to find that Rodney was still in the bed where John had seen him earlier and there were less people rushing around now that it was some time after the wounded had been brought back from the Gamma Site. John grabbed a free chair and placed it in the grass next to Rodney's bed. He sat down and looked at his friend closely. Rodney had dogtags resting on his pale, bare chest. John watched as Rodney's chest rose and fell slowly and slightly unrhythmically as though he was in pain. John would not have been surprised if he was. There were dark bruises mottling the visible portions of skin that were not bandaged - his shoulder and his lower chest to the waistband of his infirmary scrub trousers were swathed in bandages. There were a few bloodspots.

"Oh, Rodney," John whispered. "What did they do to you?" John grimaced as he remembered it was Ronon who had done this - although an unknowing Ronon from this Bizarro Universe.

John grasped Rodney's hand, then quickly let go as a nurse walked past and nodded to him, "Major."

John sat there for a few hours watching the people around him while they worked. The slightest groan and there was someone there like a shot administering more medication and a calming word.

Rodney himself eventually groaned as he started to come round and startled John. "McKay?"

"Did you get the plate of the Jumper that landed on me?"

"Jumpers don't have plates, Rodney," John said with a small smile.

"I know, Colonel Pedantic."

John grimaced. "It's _Major_ Pedantic now."

Rodney opened his eyes and turned his head to the side so that he could look at John. "You got demoted? I got shot. Wow, that's fair."

John smirked. "I'm glad you're feeling better. This place would be strange to have to stay in."

"Who says I was feeling better?"

John reached down and picked up the jar he had seen earlier resting in the grass. He rattled it in front of Rodney's eyes and the metal pellets inside chinked against the glass unpleasantly.

"What are they?" Rodney asked. He blinked, then focused his eyes, going slightly cross-eyed to see properly. "Is that metal? Oh." He shut his eyes tightly and turned away. "They were in me, right?"

"Afraid so."

"This is hell. This is my own personal hell."

"Hey, it's not so great for me either," John said.

"At least you didn't get a load of ball bearings shot at you and then get dragged back by a not so enthusiastic Zombie Ford."

John grimaced. They sat in silence for a few minutes and Rodney blinked up at the ceiling of the tent overhead.

John asked, "I heard this mission was really important and could help us take Atlantis back if it succeeded. Sumner said something about an Ancient outpost and a device."

Rodney sucked in a pained breath and released it. "Your guess is as good as mine. At least I can plead ignorance in light of my devastating injuries, but what excuse are you going to use - your hair obliterated those memories?"

"Sumner says the Athosians can't use the gate shield as they don't have the gene."

"Oh, please," Rodney said with a wince. "It's only a button they have to press to activate it. I doubt they're that stupid."

"Then what good would a device be against the shield?"

"No idea," Rodney said sadly.

They sat in pensive silence for a few minutes, then John asked, "So, what happened to the Jumper? I was pulled out of the vortex and ended up in a cell. Don't ask," he added at Rodney's look.

"I got chucked out too, right into the middle of a battlefield bog somewhere. Janus' notes are on my computer but that was on the Jumper too."

"I thought you'd done this before? What happened to the Jumper then?"

Rodney looked up at the ceiling as his eyes unfocused and he tried to blink back the tears that welled there. "Hurts..." he uttered in a small voice.

John called a nurse over who topped up his painkillers and walked away without so much as a backward glance. Rodney sighed and opened his eyes after a few seconds. "I hate this place," he said. "At least I got some attention back on Atlantis."

"You mean you were usually the only one in there brave enough to pester the nice infirmary staff that held all the good drugs to ransom and jabbed you with big needles when you were being mean to them?"

"Something like that. But it smells bad in here. Like something died and they haven't found it yet."

"I know," John said. "Keep your voice down - they have usually made me leave when I've stayed this long with you before. You were saying about the Jumper?"

"I don't know what happened to it. Before, when I tested it, I ended up being transported into myself as I had been in that timeline. First time it happened I travelled to a moment when I had been in the Jumper. I ended up asleep in the lab the second time."

"And the Jumper was safely in the bay?"

"Yes. But I can't say with certainty that that has happened here. The act of leaving hyperlight seemed more violent."

John said, "You ended up in the middle of a field though."

"Yes. I suppose the only way we'll find out if it's there is to go to Atlantis."

Rodney closed his eyes again and before John could ask any more, he was fast asleep.

xxx

"He has no recollection of the device he was sent to retrieve," John said as he stood at attention in Colonel Sumner's tent.

"That's unfortunate. The death toll has risen to 22 and there are 26 injured, including McKay."

John shifted between his feet minutely as he asked, "Can we storm the city without it, sir?"

"I don't know. But one thing I do know is that I'll be writing a lot more than 22 letters home if we do. McKay was so enthusiastic about the device and its potential uses, that I'm surprised he remembers nothing at all."

A sudden thought struck John, "Do you have a copy of the database entry about the planet and the device? It might jog his memory."

Sumner dug through a pile of papers and pulled out a document and passed it to Sheppard. "I had the thing printed for the briefing." As John looked more closely at the Colonel, he noted that there were bags under his eyes and he looked worn out. At least he was alive, but the stress of commanding during this war was clearly taking its toll.

"It's written in those hieroglyphics the Ancients used, so I've got no idea what it says."

John bounced on his feet, eager to get away and show Rodney what he had been given. "I can't read it very well either, but McKay can."

Sumner hummed and then went back to his writing. John nearly knocked several people over as he jogged back to the medical tent with his prize.


	12. The Ghost of a Chance

Rodney dozed in a drug fuelled haze – he had no idea where he was or how long he had been there. The smells were not so bad when he drifted and the pain faded away to a bearable ache. He felt safe and warm, but what little remained of his rational mind within the sleepiness knew that he was nowhere near either.

"Rodney?"

"Go 'way. I'm sleeping."

"Bu this is really important and you've been sleeping for days now."

Rodney levered his eyes open to find a scarily jubilant-looking Colonel Sheppard looking back at him. There was a scar going vertically up John's forehead into his hairline – no hair grew over the scar, but it did not seem to be too thick. Rodney frowned at it, "Did you know someone tried to cleave your head open at some point in the past?"

John's face fell and his hand rose to prod at the place where Rodney was looking. "No. That doesn't feel so good."

"Well, there's probably not much of a brain in there any more. I just hope it hasn't made you too doolally. What are you smirking about?"

John waved a sheaf of papers and grinned. "I might have a way home here. So, if you're done napping, can you take a look?"

Rodney shifted to try and get away from a knobbly bit of bedding that was digging into his back. "Ow," he uttered as a sharp sting went through him from the hole in his shoulder to the multiple wounds in his abdomen.

John looked on in worry and adjusted Rodney's pillow. Rodney gritted his teeth and desisted – a little discomfort from the shape of the bed was better than the pain.

"Home?" he breathed through his teeth.

"Atlantis – back to our timeline that wasn't as crazy as this place."

Rodney felt a bubble of anger forming in his bruised chest. "Okay, so there are no Wraith here. What's wrong with this timeline again?"

"The war!"

"I'm sure some negotiation will eventually stop it and there are a lot more people alive in this reality than there were in ours."

Sheppard's face fell. "But Teyla and Ronon…"

"Are two people out of millions, maybe even billions who have been essentially brought back to life because the Wraith never existed here."

But even in his heart, Rodney knew that no matter what happened, if they had to stay in this timeline, he would always feel out of place. At John's downcast face he said, "But we can still try to get Atlantis back."

John furrowed his brow and gave Rodney a look that made his sore insides squirm. John said, "Haven't you heard? The Athosians have started carpet bombing Sateda from orbit in retaliation for their ongoing operations offworld to try and breach Atlantis and take it back. The Satedans have responded by visiting colonies they know are loyal to Athos and butchering all the people there. Sumner says it's the worst the war's ever been and neither side are listening to words any more."

"Negotiating with guns. It'll never end." Rodney's permanent grimace increased. "Then soon we'll be no better off than had we kept the Wraith around?"

"Maybe. And having aliens kill people is not good in any way, but feels better than people killing other people." John looked away from Rodney. "So, we just go back to our timeline and try to fix it."

Rodney sighed and looked down. "It's not that easy. Our timeline, as it was, doesn't exist any more. Anyway, we have to get to the Jumper first and that means getting back to Atlantis somehow."

John waved the papers he was holding again – they were a little bit screwed up around the edges. "The IOA have given us an ultimatum – take back Atlantis in the next week or we're all going back to Earth."

Rodney raised an eyebrow, "How long have you been sitting there with those anyway?"

"A hundred years."

"I'm not sleeping beauty."

"Some of the nurses seem to think so," John said with a smirk as one walked past. She nodded at him with a small smile and continued her rounds.

"This is our ticket out of here if you can figure it out."

Rodney snatched for it, forgetting his injuries to his detriment. "Of course I can." John passed the papers to him.

Rodney read the Ancient writing and narrowed his eyes. He did not recognise some of the characters and the concepts were almost new to him.

"It was why you were on the Gamma Site a few days ago."

"I can see that," Rodney snapped. "My alter ego was probably too busy pumping iron and being stupid to figure out how to build it and hoped there would be a ready made version at the Gamma Site."

John gestured down at Rodney's more muscled physique (although most of it was hidden by bandages). "I wasn't going to say anything."

Rodney's eyes tracked along the blocky symbols. "This is interesting." He carried on reading.

"Care to share with the class?"

"This technology is not something I've come across before, at least, not having been made by the Ancients. It's the schematic for a stun bomb. It's more Wraith in design, but I suppose the absence of the Wraith in this timeline allowed the Ancients to stay a little longer and advance their technology more."

John said, "Or the Wraith stole it from the Ancients in our timeline."

"Possible." Rodney shifted again and sunk back down into the mattress with a huff. "I'd need to know more about how this timeline evolved to say with certainty. It's configured to go through a gate shield too. Hmm."

"Useful."

"They must have set up more cities and kept them operational – there were at least two cities with the Atlantis configuration in our timeline."

John frowned, "The Ancients were at war with each other?"

"I'm not a database!" Rodney said angrily. "Are there any scientists here or am I alone?"

"I haven't seen any," John said. "But I've been here with you most of the time. I think Sumner's out to get me, almost like he knows I finished him off in another timeline."

"Well, I'm going to need to know what parts we have available if I'm to build this bomb."

John nodded. "I'll see what I can find out. Do you have a list of requirements?"

"Anyone with half a brain can see what parts are needed from this," Rodney said as he waved the dog-eared papers around.

John frowned, "My brain leaked out, remember?"

"Just…" Rodney shut his eyes – the initial excitement giving way to exhaustion. "Just go and find out what we have."

He heard John getting up from the chair and the draught of air as his friend left his side and then Rodney was alone. He held the papers tightly to himself and soon drifted off to sleep. They would be home soon.

xxx

John took a wide detour around Colonel Sumner's throne tent as he picked his way through the Alpha Site Camp. There were people around with Apollo patches on carrying crates of gear to the supply tents. John had heard that the ship was due to arrive with supplies for their last stand at some point during the week. There was definitely a palpable air of tension as the final preparations for the desperate storming of the city got underway. John had not yet heard Sumner's master plan, but was sure it would involve lots of men, guns and death.

The gate activated as John went past and he paused to see who was returning. A marine came through, followed by two more. Then a woman dressed as a marine with shoulder length slightly curly dark hair came through. She looked very sad and as though all hope had left her. Another few marines followed her, but John did not look at them, he only had eyes for the woman. He caught her eye and she came over.

"Elizabeth…" John said quietly, his emotions inside were raging between grief and joy.

"John," she replied with a bemused look. "You look like a man who's never seen a woman before! How long has it been since you went offworld?"

"We're offworld now."

"You know what I mean."

"Too long," John replied. His heart hammered in his throat and he thought she must have been able to hear it, it was so loud. There were too many people in this timeline that he had said goodbye to and mourned a long time ago that were coming back to life. It made him deeply uneasy. "How have you been, Elizabeth?" John asked as he walked alongside her as she made her way through the camp. She was heading towards Colonel Sumner's tent John realised with dismay.

She sighed and swept her hair away from her eyes with her hands. "Not good I'm afraid."

John's heart sank.

"The last few planets we visited had been completely levelled. There were few people alive. The only untouched planet we found was in the grip of fear, so they were not open to any contact or negotiations with us for fear of retaliation."

"Is there any hope left at all?" John asked, dreading the answer, but needing to know all the same.

Elizabeth stopped walking and turned to face him. She searched his eyes and he tried to maintain contact although it was difficult. She sighed and looked away. "No."

"Rodney might have a solution for us."

Elizabeth looked up at him and narrowed her eyes incredulously. _"Battlefield Tech,"_ she sneered, "McKay, has not come through for us since he abandoned his research in favour of joining the marines to shoot people."

John recoiled like he had been slapped. "He'll come up with something. I promise," John added, hoping he was not going to regret it later.

Elizabeth pursed her lips and still looked doubtful. "We'll see," she said. "I have to report to Colonel Sumner, lucky me. I'll see you later."

"Bye," John said to her retreating back. He quickly headed in the opposite direction towards the edge of the camp. "Stranger and stranger…" he muttered under his breath.

As he cleared the tents on the opposite side to the F302 field. He looked around him and his eyes widened at what he saw. He could not help it as an involuntary, "Oh, wow!" escaped his mouth.

xxx

Rodney was drifting between wakefulness and drugged unconsciousness when John returned.

Several of the beds were now empty where the most severely injured had been beamed to the Apollo to go back to Earth for recovery, if they would ever find it.

"Your hair at least looks happy," Rodney said sluggishly. "Why is your face all sad?"

John frowned. "How many drugs did they give you?"

Rodney sighed. "Not enough. The tent is flashing. Are we under attack?"

"No." John looked around in worry. "Where did the papers go?"

Rodney grinned back at him widely. "The nice nurse took them away. She has blonde hair, I wonder if she's got a boyfriend?"

John almost ran to the nurse's station at the end of the tent. She smiled at him sweetly and rooted around in her cabinet and passed the crumpled papers to him. There was a blood spot on one of the sheets and John averted his eyes and thanked her. He walked back to Rodney and hoped the man would be more coherent.

"McKay," John said loudly.

"Who?" Rodney said, looking all around.

"You! I've got the papers here and I found out what we have."

Rodney's eyes slowly slid back into focus and he blinked. "For the stun bomb. Yes yes. I remember, I'm not stupid!"

"Good. I found this timeline's version of a Puddle Jumper…"

Rodney opened his mouth.

"It didn't have the time travel device in it."

Rodney's face fell and he closed his mouth unhappily.

"It won't fly, but it has lots of components you can use. There's no power so I'm sure Sumner won't mind if you want to strip it out."

"How long is it until Colonel Suicide sends us all off to kill ourselves?"

John grimaced, "Tomorrow. The final date the IOA gave us is in three days. If we haven't secured Atlantis by then, we're all going home."

"But Atlantis _is_ home," Rodney said earnestly.

"I know."

"Help me up," he said quietly, knowing he was going to regret it, but did not see that he had a choice. They had to get back to Atlantis and locate the Jumper with the time travel device – if it even existed.

John frowned down at Rodney who was still covered in mottled black and blue bruises on the skin that was not pale. Although the discolouration was fading and the wounds were healing, Rodney was nowhere near mended. But John understood.

John steeled his features as he retrieved a shirt from the store at the end of the tent. He carefully evaded the duty nurse as he went back to Rodney and helped him into it.

Rodney gritted his teeth as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He closed his eyes and breathed through the pain as John tugged him upright. Together, they shuffled out of the tent and into freedom.

"This way," John said, but Rodney could hardly hear him.

"I need better drugs," Rodney huffed. "I think they gave me a placebo."

"Not much further now, Rodney. One foot in front of the other then you can sit down and rest."

xxx

By the time Rodney and John had huffed and puffed their way through the bustling camp to the Puddle Jumper, Rodney's face was as pale as the bedsheets he had left behind in the medical tent and he was sweating profusely. Blood spotted through the white shirt John had given him.

"What do you think?" John asked as they neared the ship.

Rodney had been looking at his feet, and lifted his head with a struggle. He exhaled a breath as his eyes tracked along the ship. "Is that four drive pods?"

"Yes," John replied. He could not keep all the excitement out of his voice, despite the grave condition of the man who was latched onto him and how he was taking most of the weight of his friend.

The ship was black and sleek. Four drive pods were extended from the hull, whether permanently or because the ship had run out of power and landed that way, John did not know. Otherwise it was a similar configuration - the size being restricted by the need to make it possible to go through the gate.

"What about inside?" Rodney asked.

"I'll show you."

They stumbled their way over and John guided his charge into the rear compartment and lowered him down to the bench, extracting his support as he did so.

While John waited for Rodney to form a coherent thought through his suffering, he listened to the preparations going on outside. John knew this plan was an outside chance at best. If the Athosians were as brutal and violent as he had heard then they were all going to die.

Rodney had heard the preparations too and looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes. "Do you think we'll make it?"

"We only need to get to the Jumper bay, McKay. Let the others try to take over the city. If we retrieve the device, none of us will need to worry about what happens," John said with far more conviction than he felt.

Some of the doubt left Rodney's expression, but not all of it.

He waited a few seconds to make sure Rodney was not going to fall, then retrieved the papers from his pocket and passed them to McKay.

Rodney caught his breath, then began to look around. His face fell a little. "It doesn't look that different inside."

"I know," John conceded. "I couldn't get any data from it because there's no power."

Rodney pointed to a panel under the co-pilot's console, then lowered his arm with a pained grunt. "Check under there."

John did as he was told and retrieved a couple of power crystals, taking them back to Rodney. McKay examined them. "They might have some power, but we'll need all we can get if this thing can even be built in a day."

"Just tell me what to do, Rodney."

Rodney gave him a small smile. "Jump."

John grinned back. "How high?"

Rodney looked down at the papers. "Give me a minute."

"I thought you said it could be built?"

"I'm sure it can, but I'm not familiar with some of these components or how they fit together."

John sighed and sat down on the bench opposite him. "We're on the clock here."

"Aren't we always," Rodney said without looking up. He barked a humourless laugh. "Wouldn't you think that with a time travelling device we'd have all the time in the universe to do what we wanted?"

"If only."

Rodney looked up and glanced around the ship. "Alright, this doesn't look too different from one of our Jumpers, so the parts we need should be in here."

Under Rodney's guidance, John gathered the pieces of technology that he indicated and piled them up on the bench within Rodney's reach as the man slowly put them together.

After a few hours, and increasingly faltering movements on Rodney's part, he sighed sadly. "This isn't going to work."

"Why not?" John asked.

"There's not enough residual power in these crystals and we don't have all the parts we need."

John frowned. "But you said…"

"That I might be able to do it, yes. But I can't."

"I thought you were supposed to be intelligent?"

It was a low blow, but instead of getting angry and telling John that of course he could do it, Rodney just sighed again and looked miserable. His hands were shaking and the blood spots on his shirt had darkened where they had dried.

"I'm sorry," he said. "And I'm tired."

"A defeated McKay? We must be really screwed," John said.

"I think we were screwed a long time ago. Was it the culling of Earth or the destruction of Atlantis in our timeline that told you that?"

John saw that Rodney was flagging and tried to buck him up. "It'll be alright, Rodney. I didn't tell Sumner about this plan and I knew it was a long shot. I'll say you didn't find anything offworld at the Gamma Site and that we can't do anything else."

"Will we be able to retake Atlantis?" Rodney looked up at John intensely. "We have to do it! Or we'll be stuck here forever."

"I know. Come on, let's get you back to the tent."

Rodney had no argument there and struggled upright with John's assistance, stiff and sore all over from not having any painkillers for a while.


	13. Endless War

"Where have you been?" the nurse scolded Rodney as John lowered him back to the bed later that day.

"Not here," Rodney huffed back.

"Be nice, Rodney," John said quietly.

The nurse looked angry, but then her expression softened upon seeing her patient was in a great deal of pain. She re-inserted the IV lines he had removed and eyed him critically. "Those bandages will need changing. If you've pulled any stitches Carson will not be pleased."

While the nurse went away to gather her supplies John said, "I'll see you later. I need to go and speak to Sumner about the device you just tried to MacGyver together."

"Don't let him kill me." Rodney said as he sunk down into the bed where he lay and sighed as the drugs kicked in and numbness spread out through the stinging sharpness.

"As it is, we might get stuck here and sent back to Earth."

Rodney's eyes widened in horror. If that happened, they would never get back to the Jumper with the time travel device (if it even existed in this timeline), but John was already walking away. The nurse came back, stripped him and changed his bandages and Rodney was only vaguely aware of the rest of the day as he drifted on the drugs he had been given. She was talking the whole time about crazy Majors and him not looking after himself properly and making her busy.

"It's your job," Rodney mumbled which only led to further comments from her.

She tied one of the bandages a little too tightly around Rodney's midsection eliciting a harsh exhale from him. She eventually went away and Rodney surfed on the wave of drug induced semi-consciousness while he waited for John's next move.

xxx

"Are you sure you're strong enough for this?" John asked as he helped Rodney into his gear the next day where they stood near the gate with many fully geared military personnel lined up around them.

"If I'm not, we'll never leave this messed up timeline," Rodney said between pained breaths. "That little sojourn yesterday hurt like I was going to die, but didn't cause any lasting damage. At least the sadistic nurse didn't need to do any needlework."

John grimaced as he pulled Rodney's arms through the holes in the tac vest, then zipped it up. "Is that too tight?"

Rodney let out the breath he was holding as he got used to the pressure of the vest against the bandages underneath his clothes. "Yes."

"I told Sumner you're coming to make sure we take control of the vital systems the moment we take the gate room. He didn't seem to mind that you're injured but wanted to go anyway. In fact, he wasn't surprised at all."

"I suppose I really am a superhero in this timeline." Rodney said with a small grin.

"All the more reason we need to fix it." John said as he clipped the P90 to the front of Rodney's vest.

"Hey!"

John grinned. "As you were sleeping during the briefing… we can't go through the gate because of the shield and we can't beam into the gate room because there's a transporter blocking signal surrounding it."

John looked away and his eyes unfocused.

"What's wrong?" Rodney asked as he fingered his gun and lifted it to relieve the pressure against his bullet wounds and bruises.

"I won't be joining you in the teams beaming down."

"What?! Why not?"

"We're both going on the Apollo, but Sumner wants me out in space in an F302 to fight of the Athosian fighters."

"They have fighters?"

"Apparently."

"The Eos under Mitchell and the Helios under Carter will be joining us with all the troops we can muster."

Rodney grimaced. "Do we know how many Athosians there are on Atlantis?"

John shook his head. "Lots probably. With defences and ships to match. Sumner doesn't think we have much of a chance, but we have to try."

"Shame we can't just beam ourselves straight to the Jumper Bay," Rodney said.

"Too heavily fortified."

All Rodney could do was grimace back as they lined up and were beamed away. Green trees, mud, tents and trampled grass became the grey, cramped metal walls of the Apollo.

"I won't say goodbye," John said as he eyed Rodney and the men around them took their places ready for when they left hyperspace.

"We can meet up after Atlantis is ours again," Rodney said. "It's much more likely that we'll both be dead and it won't matter by then."

The fact that John did not respond to the comment was enough assurance for Rodney that they were both about to die. "Three ships against whatever it is the Athosians have created in ten thousand years without the Wraith eating them every generation."

"We don't stand a chance," Rodney uttered as he clutched his P90 tightly – not that it offered very much comfort in the death it promised.

"I'll see you later then," John said.

"Yes."

Then he was gone and Rodney was left alone with the bustle of the marines around him.

The soldiers were talking in hushed, awed voices. "Some say the leader of the Athosian Empire is a Goddess. Goddess Emmagan they call her."

Rodney snorted a laugh. "What, Teyla?!"

"Yes, she could kill you with just a glance. She has powerful devices at her command and none of her enemies survive her presence."

Rodney frowned as he remembered the bruises from one too many sparring sessions. But if the Wraith didn't exist here, then Teyla would be wholly human.

He sighed as he went to the muster point he had been assigned in the cargo bay. He knocked back a few painkillers as his hands trembled and he sweat in fear.

xxx

John tested the straps of his helmet and face mask as he ran the pre-flight checks in his F302. The ship was mostly the same as he was used to, but there were a couple of buttons he did not recognise. It was too late to look up what they did, so he sighed and sealed the canopy.

"Ellis to all hands. Run the engines hot, we're going to give them everything we've got the moment we leave hyperspace with the Eos and Helios."

John checked his ship was clear and started the engines. After all the adrenaline of the preparations, a strange sense of calm descended upon him. He always imagined he would go out flying in some battle or other, but never did he envision that he would die in a space battle of all things, light years and time and so very far from home. Even if they won the day and reclaimed Atlantis, he would not be home and Rodney knew it too.

"Entering theatre in five," Ellis said over the comm. "Four, three, two, one. Launch."

John rotated his ship and followed the other F302s out of the open bay doors and into the fray. Missiles and energy beam weapons were flying everywhere along with the ships themselves. The Eos was already there and taking fire. The Athosian fighters had two hulls linked in the middle and unlike the Wraith, who had not had to fight any worthy opponents for ten thousand years, the Athosians were highly trained and skilled and easily dodged every one of John's shots.

John formed up with his wingman and chose his targets. There were so many ships it was hard to fly and avoid hitting them much less avoid the bright orange beams that flew out of them towards him. One ship, then another died a fiery death in space and John kept on firing – it was all he could do.

xxx

Rodney lifted his P90 up ready and flicked off the safety just before white light enveloped him and he found himself standing in an empty corridor on Atlantis. The marines in his team moved forward stealthily and Rodney followed, keeping as close to the walls as possible and his footsteps light. Then he realised it did not matter as the Athosians, if they had a brain cell to share between them – and Teyla was hardly stupid even by Rodney's high standards, were already watching their every move on the city's internal sensors.

Rodney's fears were confirmed when he heard the sound of gunfire and another sound he did not recognise – an Athosian weapon discharge no doubt - a short way ahead of them. He grabbed the precious life signs detector he had been assigned and studied the screen. "Lots of life signs directly ahead," he said with a betraying wobble to his voice.

The squad leader, Sergeant Major Steve or something, gestured for Rodney to shut up. "Obviously," Rodney muttered and let most of the marines go first, but made sure he was not last either. A lot more than his life was riding on the success of this mission. All he had to do was get to the Jumper bay, but it may as well have been in another galaxy beyond a very scary minefield and alien barricade for all the good it was.

They reached the front lines a few seconds later and Rodney ducked behind a pillar as a green bolt of energy flew past him and he felt the heat of it singe his face. He grimaced and willed his hands to steady as he crouched. The pain in his midsection had mercifully lessened – a combination of adrenaline and drugs and certain painful, bloody death that was sure to follow very soon.

He peeked around the corner and fired a few shots, missing any potential targets, and let the marines around him pop off their shots that hit the mark. They moved forward and Rodney struggled along in their midst. They had beamed several squads down to each pier – the aim was to meet up at the base of the central tower and take it floor by floor if necessary. Rodney's suggestion of using the Lantean transporters to get there had been thrown out already – they would not be able to move in enough troops to avoid a bloodbath and certain failure.

The soldiers who died on each side were left where they lay and the injured Earth troops were tagged and vanished in a mist of white stars as they were beamed up to the ships miles overhead.

Rodney grabbed an Athosian energy weapon from a dead man's hand and wished he had the time to take it apart and figure out how it worked – was it like a Wraith or Ancient gun? Was it similar to the Traveller blasters like the one that Ronon used? He could figure out the origin of a piece of technology by the components and he longed to find out how it worked and was engineered, but there just was not any time.

He tucked the gun into his tac vest, held his middle with his left hand and the P90 in his right as he jogged to catch up with his squad.

Rodney tapped his radio, "McKay to Sheppard? How's it going up there?"

Static met him and Rodney's heart sank. They were being jammed. It was strange to think of the Athosians as a race of people who fought with space ships and beam weapons from how he had known them. Teyla was a warrior in his timeline, but it was by necessity due to the Wraith, rather than for conquest.

"Radio silence, Tech," a random marine with a rank Rodney could not hazard to guess hissed to him.

They reached the first steps at the bottom of the Central Tower and Rodney looked up and swallowed nervously. How was he going to get up there when he could hardly do it without having a heart attack under normal circumstances when he was not mortally wounded after being shot?

He climbed and found that although it hurt, it was not too difficult. The body of his alter timeline persona was better suited to such things and had clearly not spent very much time at all in the labs during its time in the Pegasus Galaxy. He had become the very thing he strived not to be – a jarhead who worshipped at the altar of the treadmill and free weights stacks. He panted as he climbed, but kept up easily.

A few soldiers assailed them, but Rodney was too far down to be in any danger. He hoped John was having as easy a time of it as he was and put one foot in front of the other as floors fell down below him and they took the city from the invaders floor by blood drenched floor.

Xxx

"We've got extra contacts!" Ellis barked over the comm into Sheppard's ears.

John checked his sensors, not for the first time that day wishing he was in a Puddle Jumper as the screen fizzled in the jamming waves flowing out from both sides. He had already watched the Asgard beams of the three large Earth ships cut through the hulls of five large Athosian carriers that had once been reflective gold and deceptively beautiful where they harboured so much potential death and destruction. There were still a few carriers left, but they were out of range and had done their fair share of return fire against the Earths ships – the Helios was dead in the water as orange flames from multiple hull breaches blew atmosphere out into space and it drifted harmlessly.

"The Satedans have crashed this party."

"Form up on me," John said to his wingman.

As he was no longer able to use the sensors to help him, John glanced around out of his canopy and saw the glint of a larger ship that had not been there a few minutes ago. It was long and thin and bright white like a knife cutting through space. Other tiny glints were flowing from the new vessel out into space – only visible when the sunlight caught them as they turned and headed towards the fight.

The Athosians seemed to be as confused as the Earth ships at least at first to John's eyes.

"Well, would you look at that," Ellis said. "Looks like the Satedans and Athosians hate us enough to gang up."

John saw it too as both sets of ships angled themselves towards the bedraggled F302 survivors. Bolts of slow moving, blinding white energy flew through space and slammed into the Apollo, sputtering against the shields that glowed blue and yellow as they trembled under the impacts.

John could see the Earth ships were too far away to return fire and the last thing he saw before he was forced to fight for his life once more was a bolt flying into the weakened Helios and going right through it from top to bottom – tearing the ship in two in a ball of dying fire.

The Apollo took a couple more hits as it tried to get closer, then the shields failed.

John flew the F302 against the oncoming ships, but there were hundreds against their remaining handful. He knew in his heart that they did not stand a chance, but fought as hard as he could all the same.

He took out ten ships – Athosian and Satedan – before he got five on his tail and his luck ran out.

The first shot that he could not evade in time caught his right wing and made the ship spin. He grabbed the control stick tightly with both hands as the force of the spin pinned him breathlessly to his chair. Sirens wailed and beeped at him, then another shot flew towards him. He watched it approaching in the window as space spun around dizzyingly. It was heading right for him, and its impending impact was as inevitable as the unstoppable onward march of time itself.

At his point of death John did not think of his life or have the events of his life flash before his eyes like so many clichés of the living who had the time left to ponder what they thought would happen just before death. Instead, John merely hoped that Rodney's end, when it came, was just as quick, and he also hoped that he had bought the teams on Atlantis enough time to complete their mission, hopeless as it now was. Flames engulfed John's ship and his last thought was that he hoped the toll of so many lives would be worth it.

xxx

An Athosian soldier jumped out at Rodney from one of the floors he was running past. They were too close to shoot each other and the man grabbed Rodney's arms preventing him from reaching his smaller sidearm. They grappled and the man kneed Rodney in the groin making him double over into the knee that came up again and slammed into his chest.

There was a loud bang and the man's face startled in shock and froze as his body suddenly went limp and Rodney stumbled.

"Keep moving!" a marine shouted and Rodney shoved the dead Athosian off himself. Then he limped onwards - the pain was very much alive now as he moved.

Other Athosians attacked them as they went, killing several people ahead of Rodney. Rodney was forced to fire in the general direction of one of the attackers. He hated killing people in normal circumstances, but these were Athosians! Teyla's people! He could not face killing any of them, even though they were so many thousand years removed from their friendly alternate timeline versions.

The closer they got to the gate room level, the more frantic the fighting became and the more frequent their interruptions. They kept losing people as they were killed and injured and others had to spread out to clear floors they passed so that they did not get trapped. Slightly more worrying was that the ships in orbit were no longer beaming the tagged injured soldiers up for emergency medical treatment.

"It's shielded," a marine said to Rodney when he queried it. "Shielded and our transporters are being jammed so the tags no longer work."

Rodney swallowed and kept running up the stairs with a struggle not only in pain but because the fighting was getting worse and it would not be long before he was forced to kill or be killed.

The front line reached the gate room and the marines there threw a handful of grenades in which exploded so close at hand that they rocked the staircase and made Rodney hold onto the railings tightly for fear he might fall. If they blew the supporting beams they were all facing a long terminal drop.

They ran into the gate room in the wake of the grenades' explosions and heat in a hail of bullets. Green beams and bolts cut through the smoke and Rodney thought it was only luck that enabled him to make it through where men were falling all around him and writhing on the floor. When he knew there was no one on his side in front of him, Rodney fired blindly into the smoke half hoping he hit something, and the rest of him terrified that he was killing. He was supposed to be a scientist! Although his physique in this timeline told him otherwise.

"We have the gate room," a man above him shouted. "There's still some fighting on the levels below but Atlantis is ours."

"Let's end this once and for all," Rodney said as he ascended the gate room steps and headed for the control consoles. He quickly worked to secure the city, unlocking the Athosians jamming codes with his fast fingers and quick thinking mind as easily as a knife cuts through butter. The city responded to him as though it was already his and he had never left. It was like a friend he could rely on when all others had left him alone like John in space above.

He shut down the jamming codes the Athosians had put in place. "We should be able to call our ships now," he announced to Sumner as the man came into the room with the last of the troops - at the back where he would be safe from the flying bullets, Rodney thought with a grimace and a twinge of hostility. His heart was still pounding furiously from the run up the stairs and adrenaline of the fighting.

While Sumner spoke into his radio, Rodney tapped another comm channel open. "McKay to Sheppard."

He was met be more static and grimaced. What had happened up there?

Sumner announced, "I've made contact with Mitchell of the Eos. The battle is not going so well up there as the Satedans have joined in."

Rodney did not like the implications of that.

"Can you get the shields up, McKay?"

Rodney checked the power levels and said, "There were a few blocks in place that didn't seem Athosian in origin that I've broken through."

"Good." Sumner called the remaining ships down to land on the piers and instructed Rodney to raise the shield as soon as they landed. The city was theirs.

But where was John? Rodney waited to raise the shield until Sumner gave the word that the remaining ships where safely within the city's confines. The Eos and Apollo landed, but the Helios was destroyed and very few F302s returned. "McKay to Sheppard," Rodney said as the shield rose up from the ocean around the city and closed over the top as the Athosian and Satedan fighters followed their quarry down through the atmosphere but were stopped.

"John! Please come in, don't leave me in this crazy place all on my own!" There was no reply. It was all up to Rodney now as John was apparently beyond radio contact.

Knowing that his job was done and the city was safely back in the hands of Earth once more, Rodney snuck away from his station and up the stairs to the Jumper Bay. The ships around him were the same as the one he had seen on the Alpha Site - black and sleek and evil looking things with too many drive pods and extra parts he did not want to hazard a guess at what they did.

Rodney was checking each one in turn when a woman screamed nearby and he heard feet hitting the floor quickly. He spun around in time to see a woman with long wavy hair adorned with a wonky gold headdress wearing a blouse and skirt of the same colour covered in beads and jingly sequins and metal pieces. She charged at him as she yelled, with a pointed object that looked like a long, thin ceremonial spear held out in her hands. Rodney did not even have a chance to grab his gun, but he did have a fraction of a second which he used to say, "Teyla?" in surprise before the spear pierced his side and ran right through him, forcing him backwards.

He spat blood as she drew the weapon out of him with a sickening slurp and she cried, "Isn't it enough that you came here?! Now you take our city?"

Rodney curled up on the floor, clutching himself as she held the red dripping spear in her hands and angled it towards his chest where he lay. "Your city?" Rodney gasped and choked.

Teyla frowned. "How did you know my name? None other than my own people have seen me."

"I just need to find a device in one of these ships then it will be over for all of us." Even though the pain fogged his mind and the tears stung his eyes, Rodney reached under himself and grabbed his sidearm. "Things were better with the Wraith. I didn't get shot by Ronon and stabbed by you."

"What is this device of which you speak? Is it a weapon?"

"No. But it might as well be. I'm so sorry." Rodney pulled the gun out as the spear descended again. Teyla may not have had Wraith DNA in this timeline, but she was still as dangerous with a weapon. He pulled the trigger and rolled away.

Teyla cried out and the spear hit the ground with a metallic clang. Rodney had to shoot her again and he turned away from her as she died. "Things will be better, I promise. For you, Ronon, John and everyone."

Rodney staggered into the nearest Jumper and promptly tripped over the contraption on the deck in the rear compartment. "Great," he coughed out as blood flowed up his throat.

He staggered upright and sealed the hatch then grabbed the tablet already interfaced with the device. His blood leaked out onto his hands and covered the screen, forcing him to wipe it away in disgust so that he could see the controls. He set it from memory for a time around about the same as when he and John had been above the Iratus Bug Planet before they had released the canister of gas that had started this whole tragedy. At least, Rodney hoped he had set it for that time as his vision kept greying out. He hit the engage button and the window in the cockpit was filled with white light then the reassuring hyperlight vortex flowed past. The point in the distance directly in the middle of the vortex drew Rodney's pain filled eyes towards it in its unknown promise of a better time and a better end to his life than this one.

With great difficulty, Rodney removed his tac vest and pulled out his bandages, tying them all around his middle as tightly as he could as his hands slipped through the blood saturating them.

He was going to die.

Rodney jabbed the morphine injector in his leg, not really caring as long as it numbed the pain. He curled up tightly on the deck as he blissed out in the drug and it washed the pain away and only numbness remained. The grey, fuzzy feeling spread through his body, starting in his legs and moving up through his middle, blanketing his heart then up to his head and awareness. His vision dimmed and then he knew no more as the Jumper sped backwards towards a time when he would rather be.

But Rodney did not die, he only fell unconscious, even though he was dying and his injuries would be mortal even if there was highly advanced medical assistance somewhere outside in the times he was travelling through. Life did not entirely flee him and his memory remained intact beneath the veil of his consciousness, before the Jumper broke through the barrier at the end of the hyperlight vortex and threw its solitary occupant out.


	14. Infinite Divergence

Rodney jolted awake and drew in a sharp breath in shock. "Oh my!"

Space spread out before him through the window of the Jumper and Rodney patted himself down in panic, but there was no pain. "What the hell was that!?"

"You alright, McKay?" A familiar drawling voice asked from his left side.

Rodney tore his eyes away from the window and towards where the voice had come from. "John!" Rodney's heart rose.

At John's peculiar look, Rodney flustered and elaborated. "Thank goodness you're still alive! When are we?"

John frowned and waved at the planet out of the window as it swung round into view. "Above the bug planet ready to exterminate the creepy crawling bastards."

"No no no! Don't do it!"

John frowned, "But this is the only way, remember? Atlantis is gone."

"Let's just say… it didn't work out so well."

Rodney swore he could hear the cogs turning in John's head as the man's eyes unfocused slightly. "A Galaxy without Wraith is worse than the one we left?"

Rodney nodded vehemently. "Trust me, we don't want to go back there."

"Okay," John drawled. There was a moment's pause then John's eyes widened and he turned towards Rodney. "So, if it's only you who came back and remembers what happened... where am I?" John looked around Rodney as though he might be able to see another version of himself lurking out of sight behind the scientist.

Rodney gulped and averted his eyes.

"I _died_?!" John baulked. "How is that fair?"

Rodney did not look up. "I think you died, I can't be certain."

"So, you left me behind. Gee, thanks, McKay. I'll remember that when your birthday comes round."

Rodney frowned and finally looked up to glare at John. "Look, I'm sorry, alright!? I got shot by Ronon, stabbed by Teyla, then you go flying off into the sunset in a tiny ship against the entire Athosian and Satedan fleet of battleships. All the while we're killing hundreds of Athosians who have decided they want Atlantis for themselves and won't let anyone else convince them otherwise unless we kill them!"

John's eyes got steadily wider as Rodney spoke and then he held up his hands. "Alright alright. It was bad and killing bugs is not the right thing to do, no matter how tempting and good it sounds. So what do we do now?"

"Nothing quite so drastic. I gave it some thought while I was lying in a field hospital drugged up to the gills."

"Should be a good plan then…"

Rodney ignored John's dig and carried on. "We go forwards again."

"Back to the future?" John said with a grin.

"That wasn't funny the first time. "Rodney said as his face twitched. "We go to the moment we met that crazy guy on the planet we visited that led the Wraith to Atlantis. We find out what he knows without taking him back to Atlantis."

"We'll be home in time for the weekly roast dinner."

Rodney grinned. "I hope so. I haven't had any steak for weeks."

John sighed in longing at the planet before them. "It's a good day for you, bugs, you get to live forever."

Rodney reprogrammed the device, pleased that he may finally be on his way home again from the time meddling fiasco he had helped to create. He consulted his tablet for the exact time to enter – about an hour or so before they had returned to Atlantis with their virus infected traitor.

Once more the Puddle Jumper sailed along with currents of time and Rodney closed his eyes and dozed, hoping and begging that this would be the last time.

xxx

Rodney was thrown from the Jumper as it left hyperlight. He ended up just outside the hut where he had entered seemingly so long ago to be attacked by the crazy man who had turned out to be far more insane than he could ever have imagined.

Even the slightest change had now altered this timeline beyond the one that had led to such disaster before. Even the moving of a single grain of sand could have untold effects on the timeline. Just in being there, things had already changed.

Rodney knew what was going to happen this time and the gift of foresight gave him an edge. He deftly dodged out of the way as the man leapt at him, but still got caught, such was his daintiness.

The man tripped Rodney and landed on him as he fell and started pummelling him in the face and chest. "Hey!" Rodney shouted, then lost all his breath after a particularly heavy blow to his solar plexus.

John and Teyla came in just as Ronon stunned the man and then pulled him off where he had collapsed onto Rodney.

John was looking worried, "McKay, you _do_ remember what happened, right?"

Rodney grimaced. "Yes. But it was a lot longer ago for me than it was for you."

Teyla glanced between them. "What are you talking about?"

"It's a long story," John said.

"Mine's longer," Rodney ground out.

"I can tie him up," Ronon offered.

"Do it," John said. "He's got a Wraith virus in him so we can't take him back to Atlantis."

Ronon frowned, then shrugged and secured the man to a chair as he had done so before.

"You can still walk, Rodney?" John asked in concern as Teyla crouched down next to him where he lay spread-eagled on the floor and wincing.

"I don't know. He hit me harder this time for some reason. Things hurt more."

Teyla grabbed Rodney's hand and helped him upright. "I will assist you."

"Go back to the gate and get a medical team out here," John said to Rodney and Teyla. "The tech is hidden because it's organic Wraith tech."

Rodney tried unsuccessfully to fold his arms, then desisted. "Obviously. And there's a time travelling Jumper on Atlantis, but let's not go there."

"You can explain it on the way back to the gate," Teyla said as she gestured for the limping and pained Rodney to follow her.

Once they were gone, Ronon and John stood watching the stunned man in the chair. "Do you want me to kill him?" Ronon asked.

"Not yet. He still has a job to do for us."

xxx

Keller examined the bound man with Rodney lurking anxiously at her elbow with his own equipment. He had insisted on coming back with them despite his injuries which was not like him at all.

"Shouldn't you be annoying the infirmary staff, McKay?" John asked as he watched Keller working and the man glared at them angrily.

"Probably, but after the third iteration of hell I decided to see this one through, even if I die from internal bleeding before everything's fixed."

"You're not going to die, Rodney," Jennifer said.

"If you're quiet about it," Ronon added. "Otherwise you might."

Rodney swallowed nervously - after the Satedan vs. Athosian war he had lived through, just barely, he was a bit wary of Ronon and Teyla now. His insides squirmed in phantom pain as the memory of the shot pellets Ronon had peppered into him and Teyla's spear that would have killed him if he had not made it to the Jumper in time.

John smiled strangely. "But even if you do, I can get Zelenka to fix up the time travel device and go back so we can save you."

Rodney blinked across at John as he was pulled from his dark thoughts. "You'd do that?"

"Of course," Teyla said. "We all would."

Rodney smiled. "I hope it won't be necessary. Once this has all blown over, I'm going to dismantle the device and fire it into the New Lantean Star just to be sure."

"Can't be too careful," John agreed.

Jennifer worked for a few more minutes then shook her head. "I can't see anything wrong with him. No Wraith technology or unusual tissue at all."

"Let me have a go," Rodney said as he moved in with his scanner.

"How can you be so certain it is inside him?" Teyla asked.

"Oh, it's in here, alright," Rodney said as he started his scans.

The man sat there and after an angry glare at each person in turn he said, "I don't understand why you are treating me like this. The Wraith have destroyed my world and this is how you treat me?! What have I done to deserve this?"

"Nothing yet, but you will," Rodney mumbled. "And there it is." He turned to the gathered people and poked his scanner a couple of times, "It's hard to see, but there are some faint energy readings coming from him that are associated with Wraith transmissions. I imagine he has some way of activating it, but it seems his whole body is a transmitter of some kind."

John stood with his face grim while Jennifer checked her own readings. "I was only looking for organic anomalies, but now that you've pointed it out, I can see it too. I'd need to run a full scan back on Atlantis to check the extent of the modifications the Wraith have made."

"Me too," Rodney conceded. "But what I see is enough."

"The Hive that captured you," John said, "They were the ones who culled this planet and killed those with the Hoffan drug and culled the rest?"

The man hung his head down, "Yes. They promised me great glory and safe harbour with them if I helped them to find Atlantis. They promised they were going to use the city for the good of all the humans in the Galaxy."

"Yes, by culling Earth instead," Rodney grumbled.

"They lied," Ronon said as he fiddled with his blaster. "No-one has ever survived a bargain with the Wraith because the only things humans can offer them in return are food and sport."

"Keep him here and we'll send guard changes," John said to the marines who had returned with Rodney, Teyla and Jennifer. "Once the Daedalus gets back, we'll call this Hive and end this once and for all."

"Are you alright, Rodney?" Jennifer asked as they went through the rooms towards the front door of the house.

"Not really," he replied with a grimace. "I've been shot and stabbed. I saw the end of Earth and it was all my fault. I saw the Pegasus Galaxy at war even without the Wraith..." he sighed as Jennifer furrowed her brow and squeezed his shoulder.

Rodney glanced at her. "And this better be the end of it all now. I'm not sure if I want to know what comes next any more."

Teyla and John followed them with Ronon. "Can you be certain the Hive Teelir is in contact with is the only one with the capability to kill all Hoffan Virus carriers?" Teyla asked John as they left the house.

"It better be."

xxx

The Daedalus came a week later and the man in the chair who had since been relocated to another planet to trick the Wraith, closed his eyes briefly and looked around at them. "It's done," he said.

"Really?" Rodney asked, sounding impressed. "You called them with a thought?"

"Yes, they said I only had to think about it and they would come."

And sure enough, five hours later, a Hive with two Cruisers trailing along appeared. The Daedalus easily dispatched them with its superior beam weapons and shields. More Hives turned up, but seeing that they had been fooled, they fled before the Daedalus could destroy them all.

"Atlantis is tracking the ones that flee," Rodney told the others where they stood on the Daedalus' bridge, monitoring the carnage.

"Can we be sure we got the one with the virus?" Teyla asked.

"No," John said. "But all we can do now is hope that we did and keep fighting them."

xxx

Two weeks later, John wandered into the Jumper Bay to find Rodney working inside the rear compartment of one of the ships. There had not been any more reports of worlds ravaged as badly as Lanaria. Teelir had now been taken in by allies of the Athosians after Jennifer's team had worked out a way to safely isolate and purge the Wraith modifications that had been made to his body.

John crept up to the Jumper like a cat and sneaked in out of Rodney's sightline. "So..." he said loudly.

Rodney jumped and banged his head on the control crystal tray hanging down from the ceiling. "Say hello first next time, Sheppard!"

"Hello," John said innocently.

Rodney glared at him as he clutched his head with one hand. "I should insure my brain against damage. Compensation for every brain cell lost due to incompetents, Colonels and crazy natives that think hitting heads is really progressive and far out!"

"I don't think they'd let you."

Rodney folded his arms over his chest and lifted his chin. "Why not?"

"Too risky."

Rodney deflated a little. "Anyway. _So_ what?"

"So... I was wondering what happened to the time travel device. I haven't seen you since the Wraith went running."

"I was going to call you about that. How would you like a nice trip to the sun?"

"Sounds good. Should I bring my beach towel?"

"Not for this trip, no."

John leant up against the side of the rear hatch frame. "Why not keep it though? From what you said, it's come in handy more times than I lived through."

"Too dangerous. We've had this talk before and with Woolsey and the others. The timeline we create can't be predicted or anticipated."

"But without it, you said Earth was culled and then Atlantis was destroyed. Can't we just store it or something?"

Rodney put his screwdriver down and turned to face John. "But where do we draw the line? One day we would go back in time to save a whole planet where billions of lives had been lost, the next someone might want to go back to save a single person even though the risks of things going wrong again is very high."

"Good point," John sighed. "I still want to keep it."

"I know. But if it's any consolation, I'm sure I could build another one if we ever find the crystals needed. Besides, it's only good for another few more jumps then the unique power crystal it runs on will be completely drained."

John grinned. "Why don't we go back in time to an earlier version of the device and grab another one?"

Rodney shook his head with a sly smile. "Nice try, but the power drain and device itself remains linear in its own isolated timeline. It was once fully charged, but now it's nearly gone. I've seen it through every one of its trips."

John pushed off from the frame. "Are we ready to go now?"

Rodney looked around the Jumper. "Let me just get my things."

A few hours later and the tiny spaceship cut through space and got as close to the sun as possible where it could remain without burning up in the intense heat and radiation. Inside the ship, Rodney was cradling the dismantled time travel device tightly to his still healing bruises.

"Are you ready?" John asked as he set the Jumper to a stop relative to the sun's position.

The scientist stared out of the window with wide unseeing eyes.

"Rodney?" John asked in a quiet voice. "Are you alright?"

Rodney shook himself out of his staring. "Hmm, what? Yes yes. Let's get this over with before I change my mind."

 _"Your_ mind?" John said as he and Rodney went into the rear compartment. "You were the one who was convincing me earlier!"

"I know." Rodney laid the device down on the floor in the rear compartment and gave it one last look before retreating back into the cockpit.

John sealed the central doors and turned the ship around, so that the back was facing towards the sun. He hit the rear hatch release control and they watched on the sensors as the debris floated out of the hatch and got snagged by the strong gravity.

They watched its progress on the HUD while it floated away until it could no longer be seen due to the high radiation.

Rodney was silent on the way back to Atlantis and John did not speak either until they were nearly back.

"Feeling better?" John asked.

Rodney's mouth downturned. "Not really." He brightened a little. "But I think I will eventually."

"No safety net?"

Rodney smiled. "How it should be."

John grinned back.

 _The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Please follow link if you would like to leave feedback on LiveJournal [here](http://x-varda-x.livejournal.com/85908.html)


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